Rick Anthes’ Contributions to the Science of Tropical Cyclones and Mesoscale Meteorology (Invited Presentation)

Over the course of his career, Rick Anthes made wide-ranging and long-lasting contributions to atmospheric science. In this talk, I will review Rick’s early work on tropical cyclones (TCs), and more generally, on mesoscale meteorology. Rick was a pioneer in the development and scientific use of three-dimensional (3D) TC models. With the relaxation of the axisymmetric constraint, previously inaccessible TC features such asymmetric outflow jets, spiral rain bands, and asymmetric ocean response and feedbacks became the subjects of systematic analysis. At the end of a productive decade in TC research, Rick wrote a very influential book on the state of TC science (Tropical Cyclones: Their Evolution, Structure and Effects, AMS Monographs, 1982) which is still remarkably current and a very good introduction to anyone wishing to learn TC basics. Rick’s 3D TC model gradually morphed into a general-purpose mesoscale model that became the avatar for the community mesoscale models MM1 through MM5. I will discuss Rick’s contributions to mesoscale meteorology through his targeted applications of mesoscale modeling to several canonical problems in our field such as explosive cyclogenesis, frontogenesis and the sea breeze, among others.