Six Decades of Tropical Meteorology Research—A Retrospective on Michio Yanai’s Life and Career

Abstract

his monograph on convection-coupled systems in the tropics was inspired by the life and career of Professor Michio Yanai, whose major contributions to the subject spanned more than five decades. From a distant perspective, Professor Yanai?s career can be understood in the context of Japanese scientists who immigrated to the United States in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, enriching the meteorological research community in the United States as well as abroad (Lewis 1993). A closer look reminds us that the tapestry of scientific progress is created by the contributions of individual scientists with their unique backgrounds, motivations, and talents, and the serendipity of events that shape their lives.