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Isidoro Orlanski (born 1939) is an Argentine-American atmospheric physicist, meteorologist, and ocean scientist of Polish and Jewish heritage. He is an emeritus professor at Princeton University and is known for his groundbreaking contributions to the dynamics of weather systems and ocean currents.

Early Life and Education

Orlanski was born in Rivera, Buenos Aires, in 1939 to Jewish immigrants Samuel and Sara Orlanski, who fled Wolkowysk, Poland during the early 20th century pogroms. With the help of the Jewish Colonization Association, which enabled Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe to farm in Argentina, the Orlanski family settled in rural Argentina before moving to Buenos Aires in the early 1940s.

In 1959, Orlanski enrolled in the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences (Spanish: Facultad de Ciencias Exactas) at the University of Buenos Aires, where he studied physics. During his study, Orlanski worked as a programmer for Dr. Rolando Garcia, the dean of the school at the time, assisting U.S. professors visiting the Department of Meteorology. In 1964, Orlanski earned a degree in physics from University of Buenos Aires. In 1965, he received a grant to pursue graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Under the supervision of Jule Charney, he completed his PhD in 1967 with a thesis titled Instability of Frontal Waves, which earned the Carl Gustav Rossby Award for best thesis in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences program.

Career

Before his anticipated return to Argentina, Orlanski followed Jule Charney's advice to spend a year in Washington, D.C., joining the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), where he worked with Joseph Smagorinsky. The GFDL, under the leadership of Dr. Joseph Smagorinsky, was pioneering the development of numerical models for weather forecasting and climate assessment. Orlanski ultimately decided to spend his career at GFDL. He relocated with the lab to Princeton University, New Jersey, where he became a lecturer in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, a collaboration between the lab and Princeton.

By 1980, GDFL had grown to 134 staff members, with Orlanski being appointed the lab's first Deputy Director. During a sabbatical in Argentina in 1985, he established a center for numerical modeling that became the Centro de Investigaciones para el Mar y la Atmósfera (CIMA). CIMA grew into a leading institution in Latin America, attracting scientists and students globally. Orlanski retired from GFDL in 2007 but continued teaching at Princeton University until 2017, retiring as a lecturer with the rank of Full Professor.

Research

Orlanski’s work has been instrumental in mesoscale meteorology. He introduced the terms Meso-alpha, Meso-beta, and Meso-gamma to classify the horizontal scales of atmospheric processes, widely used in limited area modeling. The primary purpose of Orlanski’s classification of mesoscale phenomena was to assist modelers in designing limited-area models for mesoscale prediction. This framework was pivotal in the design of field experiments for mesoscale observations, as well as in defining the spatial and temporal scales necessary for forecast models. Moreover, it took over two decades for both numerical models and observational technologies to achieve an acceptable level of accuracy in this domain. His research on boundary conditions for unbounded hyperbolic flows has applications beyond meteorology, influencing fields like hydrology and flow chemistry.

Climate and weather forecasting typically utilize global models that, given the initial state of the atmosphere, can simulate future atmospheric conditions. These models, however, are very coarse, with data points spaced hundreds of kilometers apart to cover the entire globe. This resolution is inadequate for simulating mesoscale phenomena, which can range over scales of just a few hundred kilometers. Consequently, a different model type, Limited Area Models, becomes important. For these models to be effective, they require a set of initial conditions as well as an understanding of the dynamics at the boundaries of the model domain.

In the mid-1970s, Orlanski published two seminal works. In the first article, "A Rational Subdivision for Scales of Atmospheric Processes," he classified and coined the terms Meso-alpha, Meso-beta, and Meso-gamma to identify the appropriate horizontal scales of atmospheric processes, which are mainly used for limited area modeling of these phenomena. The second paper, "A Simple Boundary Condition for Unbounded Hyperbolic Flows,” garnered interest beyond atmospheric sciences, including hydrology and flow chemistry. It provided a straightforward numerical scheme for establishing boundary conditions in bounded flows.

Awards and Honors

• Carl Gustav Rossby Award (MIT, 1968) – For best PhD thesis in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences program.
• NOAA Administrator's Award (1985) – For outstanding mesoscale research, scientific leadership, and administrative accomplishments.
• RAICES Prize (2011) – Awarded by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Argentina for contributions to science and scientific development in Argentina.
• Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Selected Academic Publications

• Orlanski, I. (1968). Instability of Frontal Waves. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 25(2):178-200.
• Orlanski, I., & Bryan, K. (1969). Formation of the Thermocline Step Structure by Large-Amplitude Internal Gravity Waves. Journal of Geophysical Research, 74(28):6975-6983.
• Orlanski, I. (1975). A Rational Subdivision of Scales for Atmospheric Processes. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 56(5):527-530.
• Orlanski, I. (1976). A Simple Boundary Condition for Unbounded Hyperbolic Flows. Journal of Computational Physics, 21(3):251-269.
• Orlanski, I., & Katzfey, J. (1991). The Life Cycle of a Cyclone Wave in the Southern Hemisphere. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 48(17):1972-1998.
• Orlanski, I., & Chang, E.K.M. (1993). Ageostrophic Geopotential Fluxes in Downstream and Upstream Development of Baroclinic Waves. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 50(2):212-225.

References

1. "Carl Gustav Rossby Award 1968". MIT PAOC. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
2. "Siempre está volviendo". nexciencia.exactas.uba.ar (in Spanish). 2012-04-26.
3. "The Sixties in Argentina: Political Repression, Cultural Vibrancy". Harvard Review of Latin America. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
4. "Pioneering Meteorologist Smagorinsky Dies". Princeton University. September 29, 2005. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
5. "The AOS Program's Fortuitous Beginnings" (PDF). Princeton University. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
6. ^ "GFDL Activities: Review of Twenty-Five Years of Research 1955-1980". NOAA. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
7. "AOS & CICS Newsletter, Vol. 2 Number 2: Orlanski Trip to Argentina" (PDF). Princeton University. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
8. paocweb.mit.edu http://paocweb.mit.edu/education/graduate/the-carl-gustaf-rossby-award. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
9. "AOS & CICS Newsletter, Fall 2011, Volume 5, Number 3" (PDF). Princeton University. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
10. "List of Fellows". American Meteorological Society. Retrieved 2024-11-22.

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