Heino Tooming, 22 October 1930 - 18 September 2004
Heino Tooming was born in Mustvee, Estonia, a small town near Lake Peipsi on 22 October 1930. He received the diploma of a geophysicist, graduating from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of Tartu University in 1954 and began his career at the Institute of Physics and Astronomy as an engineer and meteorologist at the Actinometric Station. From 1957, he continued his work as a junior researcher. In his Candidate's thesis, Heino Tooming investigated the reflection and absorption of solar radiation in plant stands. He defended the thesis at the University of Tartu in 1961. From 1962, Heino Tooming continued his career as a senior researcher. His main research during the following three decades covered the investigation of production process of plants and their communities. However, he was also fascinated by thunderstorms and tornadoes. Together with Dr. Vello Ross, he established the first network of thunderstorm observations at the Estonian Naturalists' Society. As these observations provided also data on tornadoes, he published a number of articles on them from 1960 onwards and organized mappings of their paths.
In 1972, Heino Tooming defended his doctoral thesis on "Radiation regime and productivity of vegetation" at the University of Tartu. He was the first physicist in the Soviet Union to receive the degree of D.Sc. in biology. In 1990, Heino Tooming received a professional certificate of a professor of meteorology, climatology and agricultural meteorology, issued by the Higher Evaluation Commission of the Soviet Union. This certificate can be regarded the highest scientific degree in the former Soviet Union. In the early nineties he was one of the main authors of the conception of meteorology and hydrology of the newly independent Estonia.
Contacts with Dr. Richard E. Peterson from Texas Tech University led Heino Tooming back to his favourite topic: Tornadoes. He organised an international conference dedicated to the 110th anniversary of Johannes Letzmann's birth. Johannes P. Letzmann, who had studied tornadoes while working at the University of Tartu before World War II, was decades ahead of his time. Heino Tooming composed a map of all tornadoes recorded in Estonia during the last two centuries and published a lot of articles about this phenomenon. He also encouraged younger colleagues to study tornadoes. Heino Tooming represented Estonia at numerous conferences dealing with severe storms and tornadoes. From 1996 to 2001 he was the Estonian contact of the International Association for Wind Engineering. The renowned Estonian geophysicist died on 18 September 2004.