Wincenty Okołowicz (; 26 June 1906 – 3 September 1979) was a Polish geographer and an expert in

geomorphology Geomorphology () is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features generated by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or near Earth's surface. Geomorphologists seek to understand wh ...

and

climatology Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "slope"; and , '' -logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. Climate concerns the atmospher ...

. He is best known as the author of the 1965 major Polish classification of world's

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

s, ''Climatic Zones of the World'' ().

Early life

Okołowicz was born in a small village of Boków, near modern-day Pidhaitsi,

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

Career

In 1945, he became one of the first employees of the newly formed Department of Geography, at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in

Toruń Toruń is a city on the Vistula River in north-central Poland and a World Heritage Sites of Poland, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its population was 196,935 as of December 2021. Previously, it was the capital of the Toruń Voivodeship (1975–199 ...

. He became a professor at Warsaw University in 1952. From 1953 to 1959, he was the director of the State Hydrological and Meteorological Institute (). From 1956 to 1959, he was a vice-chairman of the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences (, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of distinguished scholars a ...

's Commission for the "International Geophysical Year" (). He is the author of a map of climatic spheres (1965) as well as the first Polish textbook for climatology (''Klimatologia ogólna'', 1969). Okołowicz died on 3 September 1979 in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

References

* * 1906 births 1979 deaths Academic staff of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń Polish climatologists Polish geographers Polish geomorphologists 20th-century Polish geographers {{Poland-scientist-stub