Wheeler J. North
Encyclopedia
Wheeler J. North born in San Francisco, California
, was a marine biologist and environmental scientist
at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the California Institute of Technology. He is best known for his pioneering work to understand the ecology of California’s coastal kelp forests, and pioneering work in biomass fuels and the sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
, Mexico
, as his father was a mining engineer and his mother was an assay chemist. In 1927, the family moved to La Jolla, California. In 1940 North graduated from The Thacher School
in Ojai, California
and entered college at the California Institute of Technology
(Caltech). While still in college in December 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, which allowed him to complete his Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1944. After training in U.S. Army Officers Candidate School at Fort Monmouth
in New Jersey, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Signal Corps and assigned to the Philippines
. However, he arrived in Southeast Asia after VJ Day in August 1945 but stayed in the Philippines and Japan
as part of the American occupying forces until August 1946. After two years working with the U.S. Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, North returned to Caltech in September 1948 and completed a second bachelor’s degree in biology in 1950. He earned masters and Ph.D. degrees in Biological Oceanography at the University of California
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
in 1953 studying in the laboratory of Denis Fox. He undertook postdoctoral work with a National Science Foundation
fellowship at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory
and Cambridge University in England
.
in 1953, after which he joined the faculty of the California Institute of Technology
(Caltech) in September 1962. Although North taught marine biology
courses at the Caltech main campus in Pasadena
, he spent much of his time undertaking research at the Caltech’s Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory
in Corona del Mar
North’s principal research interest was marine ecology, specifically the kelp beds off Southern California and the population ecology
of sea urchins. He studied the effects of sewage outfalls and El Niño on kelp forests, and the predation kelp by of sea urchins. He served as a consultant for California’s kelp-harvesting industry. He was one of the first marine scientists to employ SCUBA
technology for marine research beginning as a student in 1949. While at Scripps, he worked with group studying the physiology of diving and was a pioneer in establishing scientific diving safety protocols. He was a consulting scientist after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
, and after 1973 oil crisis
, he studied the possibility of kelp farms
to produce biomass
as an alternative fuel. He contributed to the growth of the kelp farming industry in China. He also studied the ecological effects of warm-water discharges from nuclear power plants on kelp forests, and in the early 1990s he undertook studies to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide
using marine biomass
and clathrate hydrates.
of a textbook on Biology. She received further training as a physician and she entered private practice specializing in holistic health
. Upon Wheeler North's death on 20 December 2002 at Newport Beach, California
, the Southern California Academy of Sciences established the Wheeler North Award for Scientific Excellence given for excellence in research emphasizing the Southern California area and a commitment to the Southern California scientific community.
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, was a marine biologist and environmental scientist
Environmental science
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physical and biological sciences, to the study of the environment, and the solution of environmental problems...
at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the California Institute of Technology. He is best known for his pioneering work to understand the ecology of California’s coastal kelp forests, and pioneering work in biomass fuels and the sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Early life, military service and education
North was born 2 Jan 1922 in San Francisco to Wheeler O. and Florence (Ross) North, and grew up at a mining camp at La Fe in ZacatecasZacatecas
Zacatecas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Zacatecas is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is Zacatecas....
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, as his father was a mining engineer and his mother was an assay chemist. In 1927, the family moved to La Jolla, California. In 1940 North graduated from The Thacher School
The Thacher School
The Thacher School is a co-educational independent boarding school located on 425 acres of hillside overlooking the Ojai Valley in Ojai, California, United States. Founded in 1889 as a boys' school, it is now the oldest co-ed boarding school in California. Girls were first admitted in 1977. The...
in Ojai, California
Ojai, California
Ojai is a city in Ventura County, California, USA. It is situated in the Ojai Valley , surrounded by hills and mountains. The population was 7,461 at the 2010 census, down from 7,862 at the 2000 census.-History:Chumash Indians were the early inhabitants of the valley...
and entered college at the California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
(Caltech). While still in college in December 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, which allowed him to complete his Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1944. After training in U.S. Army Officers Candidate School at Fort Monmouth
Fort Monmouth
Fort Monmouth was an installation of the Department of the Army in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The post is surrounded by the communities of Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport, New Jersey, and is located about 5 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. The post covers nearly of land, from the Shrewsbury...
in New Jersey, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Signal Corps and assigned to the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. However, he arrived in Southeast Asia after VJ Day in August 1945 but stayed in the Philippines and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
as part of the American occupying forces until August 1946. After two years working with the U.S. Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, North returned to Caltech in September 1948 and completed a second bachelor’s degree in biology in 1950. He earned masters and Ph.D. degrees in Biological Oceanography at the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
in 1953 studying in the laboratory of Denis Fox. He undertook postdoctoral work with a National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
fellowship at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory
Plymouth Marine Laboratory
Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the city of Plymouth, England is an independent collaborative centre of the Natural Environment Research Council . PML's Chairman is Terence Lewis and PML's Chief Executive is Prof. Stephen de Mora.They focus global issues of climate change and sustainability...
and Cambridge University in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Academic career
North began his academic career teaching at Scripps Institution of OceanographyScripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
in 1953, after which he joined the faculty of the California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
(Caltech) in September 1962. Although North taught marine biology
Marine biology
Marine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...
courses at the Caltech main campus in Pasadena
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
, he spent much of his time undertaking research at the Caltech’s Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory
Kerckhoff marine laboratory
The William G. Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology.The lab, located 101 Dahlia St., in Corona del Mar, CA, was established by biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan in 1928 to replicate the facilities at the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, Italy. It is...
in Corona del Mar
North’s principal research interest was marine ecology, specifically the kelp beds off Southern California and the population ecology
Population ecology
Population ecology is a sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the environment. It is the study of how the population sizes of species living together in groups change over time and space....
of sea urchins. He studied the effects of sewage outfalls and El Niño on kelp forests, and the predation kelp by of sea urchins. He served as a consultant for California’s kelp-harvesting industry. He was one of the first marine scientists to employ SCUBA
Scuba diving
Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....
technology for marine research beginning as a student in 1949. While at Scripps, he worked with group studying the physiology of diving and was a pioneer in establishing scientific diving safety protocols. He was a consulting scientist after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
The Santa Barbara oil spill occurred in January and February 1969 in the Santa Barbara Channel, near the city of Santa Barbara in Southern California. It was the largest oil spill in United States waters at the time, and now ranks third after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon and 1989 Exxon Valdez spills...
, and after 1973 oil crisis
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...
, he studied the possibility of kelp farms
Kelp
Kelps are large seaweeds belonging to the brown algae in the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera....
to produce biomass
Algae fuel
Algae fuel might be an alternative to fossil fuel and uses algae as its source of natural deposits. Several companies and government agencies are funding efforts to reduce capital and operating costs and make algae fuel production commercially viable...
as an alternative fuel. He contributed to the growth of the kelp farming industry in China. He also studied the ecological effects of warm-water discharges from nuclear power plants on kelp forests, and in the early 1990s he undertook studies to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
using marine biomass
Biomass (ecology)
Biomass, in ecology, is the mass of living biological organisms in a given area or ecosystem at a given time. Biomass can refer to species biomass, which is the mass of one or more species, or to community biomass, which is the mass of all species in the community. It can include microorganisms,...
and clathrate hydrates.
Selected publications
- North, W.J. and C.F.A. Pantin. (1958). Sensitivity to light in the sea-anemone Metridium senile (L): adaptation and action spectra. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 148:385-396.
- North, W.J. (1968). The Golden Guide to Scuba Diving: Handbook of Underwater Activities. Golden Press, New York. 160pp. ISBN 978-0-307-24012-5.
- North, W.J. and J.S. Pearse. (1970). Sea urchin population explosion in southern California coastal waters. Science 167:209-210.
- North, W.J. (1975). Underwater California. University of California Press, Berkeley. 320pp. ISBN 978-0-520-03039-8.
- North, W.J. (1979). Adverse factors affecting giant kelp and associated seaweeds. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences. 35:445-447.
- Wheeler, P.A. and W.J. North (1981). Nitrogen supply, tissue composition and frond growth rates for Macrocystis pyrifera off the coast of southern California. Marine Biology 64:59-69.
- Wilson, K.C. and W.J. North (1983). A review of kelp bed management in southern California. Journal of the World Mariculture Society 14:345-359.
- Wilcox, H.A. and W.J. North (1988). Carbon dioxide reduction and reforestation. Science 247:1493-1494.
- North, W.J., V. R. Blackwell, and J.J. Morgan. (1992). Studies of carbon dioxide hydrate formation and dissolution. Environmental Science and Technology 32(5):676-681.
Personal life and legacy
North was married on 25 Apr 1964 to biologist Barbara Best. In 1974, Barbara Best North was a co-author along with Grover C. StephensGrover C. Stephens
Grover Cleveland Stephens , born in Oak Park, Illinois, was a marine biologist and comparative physiologist at the University of Minnesota and the University of California at Irvine.- Early life, military service, and education :...
of a textbook on Biology. She received further training as a physician and she entered private practice specializing in holistic health
Holistic health
Holistic health is a concept in medical practice upholding that all aspects of people's needs, psychological, physical and social should be taken into account and seen as a whole. As defined above, the holistic view on treatment is widely accepted in medicine...
. Upon Wheeler North's death on 20 December 2002 at Newport Beach, California
Newport Beach, California
Newport Beach, incorporated in 1906, is a city in Orange County, California, south of downtown Santa Ana. The population was 85,186 at the 2010 census.The city's median family income and property values consistently place high in national rankings...
, the Southern California Academy of Sciences established the Wheeler North Award for Scientific Excellence given for excellence in research emphasizing the Southern California area and a commitment to the Southern California scientific community.