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Carlo Somigliana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2017

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Abstract

Type
Obituary
Copyright
Copyright © International Glaciological Society 1956

Carlo Somigliana, Professor Emeritus of the University of Turin, died on 20 June 1955 in his ninety-sixth year. Somigliana was internationally renowned as a mathematician and physicist and his contributions to theoretical glaciology were of considerable importance and interest.

He developed a theory of glacier flow with the aim of finding a relationship and therefore a formula which would serve to determine the thickness of a glacier by means of its surface movement. The retreat of the Rodano Glacier, on which observations of surface speed had previously been carried out by Swiss glaciologists, enabled Somigliana to calculate the value of the effective coefficient of viscosity of the glacier ice by means of the formulae of his theory and his knowledge of the profile of the valley bottom. The coefficient appears in the formulae themselves. Somigliana’s formula has been widely applied, even recently, to determine the thickness of many glaciers. Direct evidence obtained by other methods has confirmed its practical value.

Somigliana was the founder and President of the Comitato Glaciologico Italiano and for many years was its leading spirit. Much of his glaciological work was published in the Bulletin of that Society during the 1930’s but his famous “Sulla profondità dei ghiacciai” appeared in Rendiconti della R. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei as early as 1921.