He was the son of science writer Otto Eduard Vincenz Ule (1820-1876).
The following year he obtained his habilitation with a study on the depth ratios of Masurian lakes.
He was editor of the Geographischen Arbeite and the Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft zu Rostock (Releases of the Geographical Society of Rostock).
Ule is sometimes referred to as "the founder of geography in Mecklenburg".
[1] With Swiss scientist François-Alphonse Forel (1841-1912), he was co-creator of the "Forel-Ule scale", a method used for obtaining an approximate measurement of surface water color.