Draft:Isidoro Orlanski

File:Orlanski2 N.jpg

Isidoro Orlanski in his office in 2012

Isidoro Orlanski (born 1939) is an Argentine-American physicist, meteorologist, and ocean scientist of Polish and Jewish heritage. Known for his groundbreaking contributions to the dynamics of weather systems and ocean currents, Orlanski is an emeritus professor in the Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences (A.O.S.) program at Princeton University.

Early Life and Education

Isidoro Orlanski was born in Rivera, Argentina, in 1939 to Jewish immigrants Samuel and Sara Orlanski, who fled Wolkowyski, Poland during the early 20th century pogroms. With the help of the Jewish Colonization Association (J.C.A.), 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 1960, Isidoro enrolled in the the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas (FCEFyN), or School of Exact Sciences and Physics, at the University of Buenos Aires (U.B.A.). While studying in the Department of Physics, he worked as a programmer for Dr. Rolando Garcia, the dean of the school, assisting U.S. professors visiting the Department of Meteorology. In 1964, Orlanski earned a degree in physics from U.B.A.. In 1965, he received a grant to pursue graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Under the supervision of Professor 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). 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, New Jersey, where he became a lecturer in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (A.O.S), a collaboration between the lab and Princeton University.

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 atmospheric modeling. 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. 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 (L.A.M.), 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.

Key publications include:

• "A Rational Subdivision of Scales for Atmospheric Processes" (1975)
• "A Simple Boundary Condition for Unbounded Hyperbolic Flows" (1976)

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 and Technology of Argentina for contributions to science and scientific development in Argentina.
• Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.
• Emeritus status at Princeton University's A.O.S. program.

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.