Isidoro 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.[2]
Before his return to Argentina, Orlanski followed Charney's advice to spend a year in Washington, D.C., joining the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), where he worked with Dr. Joseph Smagorinsky.[citation needed] The GFDL, under the leadership of Smagorinsky, was developing numerical models for weather forecasting and climate assessment.[5] Orlanski decided to spend his career at GFDL. He relocated with the lab to Princeton University in New Jersey. At Princeton, Orlanski became a lecturer in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, a collaboration between the lab and the university.[6]
By 1980, GFDL had grown to 134 staff members, with Orlanski being appointed the lab's first Deputy Director.[7] While on sabbatical in Argentina in 1985, Orlanski established an organization for numerical modeling that became the Centro de Investigaciones para el Mar y la Atmósfera (CIMA).[8] Orlanski retired from GFDL in 2007 but continued teaching at Princeton University until 2017, retiring as a lecturer with the rank of Full Professor.[citation needed]
Research
Orlanski's work had a significant impact in the field of mesoscale meteorology.[9] 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.[10] The primary purpose of Orlanski’s classification of mesoscale phenomena was to assist modelers in designing limited-area models for mesoscale prediction.[11] This framework was used in the design of field experiments for mesoscale observations, as well as in defining the spatial and temporal scales necessary for forecast models.[12] Moreover, it took over two decades for both numerical models and observational technologies to achieve an acceptable level of accuracy in this domain.[13] Orlanski's research on boundary conditions for unbounded hyperbolic flows has applications beyond meteorology, influencing fields like hydrology and flow chemistry. [14]
Awards and honors
Carl Gustav Rossby Award (MIT, 1968) – For best PhD thesis in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences program.[4]
NOAA Administrator's Award (1985) – For outstanding mesoscale research, scientific leadership, and administrative accomplishments.
^Smagorinsky, Joseph (2008). "GFDL"(PDF). Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 89 (9): 1317–1325. doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2599.1. Retrieved 2025-01-19.
^Orlanski, Isidoro (1975). "A Rational Subdivision of Scales for Atmospheric Processes". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 56 (5): 527–530. ISSN0003-0007. JSTOR26216020.
