Dzerdzeevskii, Boris

Born Sept. 14 (26), 1898, in Chernigov; died Apr. 25, 1971, in Moscow. Soviet climatologist. Doctor of physical and mathematical sciences (1942); professor (1950). Honored Worker in Science and Technology of the RSFSR (1970). Member of the CPSU from 1948.

In 1923, Dzerdzeevskii began working in the Hydro-meteorological Survey of the USSR. In 1934 he became director of the section of the service dealing with weather and ice formation for the Main Northern Sea Route Administration. In this capacity he directed the meteorological aspects of the first regular air flights in the arctic. He was also a participant in the 1937 expedition to the North Pole. Dzerdzeevskii demonstrated that atmospheric activity in the arctic is identical to that at lower latitudes. In 1940 he became head of a laboratory at the Institute of Theoretical Geophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, where new methods and instruments for investigating the upper atmosphere were worked out under his supervision. Beginning in 1950, Dzerdzeevski was head of the division of climatology at the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Here he investigated the physics of the atmospheric boundary layer of the earth (the heat balance of forest and field, working out methods of combatting dry winds) and ultra-long-term (20-25 years) weather forecasting. The principal results of his experiments are generalized in the work Circulation Mechanisms in the Atmosphere of the Northern Hemisphere in the 20th Century (1968). A recipient of the State Prize of the USSR in 1946 and 1950, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star and various medals.