 Starting in 1908 he worked as an assistant to Vilhelm Bjerknes in geophysics and meteorology.He was subsequently an assistant to Kristian Birkeland from 1911, studied at the University of Heidelberg from 1913 to 1914, and was hired at the Royal Frederick University in 1914.From 1915 to 1918, he worked and lived at Haldde in Alta, together with Ole Andreas Krogness, who ran an aurora borealis observatory.