Mesoscale Meteorology: Connecting Weather and Climate Research

In this talk, I discuss the progression of mesoscale meteorology and argue that we have entered an era where mesoscale dynamics and mesoscale processes constitute a vibrant and critical connection between weather and climate research. Several important atmospheric research problems at the interface of weather and climate, requiring advances in mesoscale meteorology, were identified 40 years ago and are still with us today. These include the organization of moist convection in relation to the synoptic- and planetary-scale motions, the explanation of the atmospheric energy spectrum and its relationship to atmospheric predictability, and gravity waves: their connection to clouds, turbulence and whole-atmospheric dynamics. Other emerging, interdisciplinary problems represent the importance of mesoscale processes in the earth and human system, including coupled mesoscale dynamics of the atmosphere and thin sea ice, mesoscale atmospheric chemistry, and mesoscale land-water-atmosphere systems, including coastal megacities and fragile ecosystems. The future is probably not mesoscale meteorology as a separate discipline, but rather, mesoscale processes as the key to unlocking an essential coupling of meteorology to other components of the earth-human system.