David McNiven Garner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David McNiven Garner | |
|---|---|
 Garner, taken at Pancake Rocks, near Punakaiki, Westland, New Zealand in 2008 | |
| Born | 26 November 1928 Wanganui, New Zealand |
| Died | 13 May 2016 (aged 87) Dunedin, New Zealand |
| Alma mater | Victoria University New York University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physical oceanography |
| Institutions | Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Zealand Bedford Institute of Oceanography University of Auckland |
David McNiven Garner (26 November 1928 – 13 May 2016)[1] was a New Zealand research physicist, with a focus in physical oceanography and ocean circulation.
After leaving secondary school in 1946, Garner could not get into university because of a preference for World War II returned servicemen, so he got a job for a year (1946–47) on the Meteorological Sounding Team Canterbury Project on radar meteorology with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, based at the Ashburton Aerodrome.[citation needed] The New Zealand National Film Unit made a short film of the activities for its Weekly Review which showed in cinemas as a short subject.[citation needed] The film shows him getting into an Avro Anson, and working with a kite on the back of a truck, and a trawler.[2]
Garner attended Canterbury College, then moved to Wellington where he graduated BSc and MSc from the Victoria College of the University of New Zealand. After graduation he was employed doing sunspot research at the Carter Observatory in Kelburn, Wellington, from where he published his first scientific paper.[3] In 1954 while employed by the Oceanographic Institute of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Garner was an hydrologist on the 1954 Chatham Islands expedition.[4] He attended New York University from 1959 to 1962, where he graduated with a PhD in physics on 22 October 1962. He returned to New Zealand in 1962, joining a team of scientists that founded the New Zealand Oceanographic Institute of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (today known as National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research), then located in Hobson Street, Wellington, New Zealand.[citation needed]
Garner immigrated with his family to Canada in 1968, as a physical oceanographer in the ocean circulation department at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia, Canada from February 1968 to July 1971, where his topics of research included effects around the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.[citation needed] He worked extensively on the oceanographic research vessels CSS Dawson and CSS Hudson (Canadian Scientific Ship, painted Survey Ship white, and run by the Bedford Institute of Oceanography), which today is the CCGS Hudson.[citation needed] His voyages included a portion of the first ever circumnavigation of North and South America by the CSS Hudson in 1970, on which he was a watch keeper, not a scientist.[5]
Garner returned with his family to New Zealand in 1971, where he was a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland Physics Department from approximately July 1971 to 1974. During his tenure, he worked on the physical oceanographic aspects of an ecological impact report by the university for Shell BP Todd Maui in their offshore drilling operations.[citation needed]
