Vision, knowledge, intuition, ingenuity, passion—the list could go on and on and still seem inadequate to describe the talents and the rich, complex personality of Pearn Peter Niiler (b. 1937, Tartu, Estonia, and d. 2010, San Diego, California). A world-renowned authority on ocean currents, his legacy will continue to exert a profound influence on the way we observe the ocean for many years to come.

Centurioni, L., and D.-K. Lee. 2013. Introduction to the special issue on upper ocean processes: Peter Niiler’s contributions and inspirations. Oceanography 26(1):25–27, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2013.01.

Niiler, P.P. 1969. On the Ekman divergence in an oceanic jet. Journal of Geophysical Research 74(28):7,048–7,052, https://doi.org/10.1029/JC074i028p07048.

Niiler, P.P. 2001. The world ocean surface circulation. Pp. 193–204 in Ocean Circulation and Climate: Observing and Modelling the Global Ocean. G. Siedler, J. Church, and J. Gould, eds, International Geophysics Series, vol. 77, Academic Press.

Ralph, E.A., and P.P. Niiler. 1999. Wind-Driven currents in the tropical Pacific. Journal of Physical Oceanography 29:2,121–2,129, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0485(1999)029<2121:WDCITT>2.0.CO;2

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