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Death Notice
Roman Evsey Glazman
26 June 1948 - 24 April 2006
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Altadena, CA
Submitted by Peter B. Weichman
Published on 27 October 2006
Roman Evsey Glazman, Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, died at the age of 57 at his home in Altadena,
California on April 24, 2006 following a year long struggle with
colon cancer. Roman had wide ranging interests in physical
oceanography, specializing in interpreting observations in terms of
modern physical theories of Kolmogorov, Kraichnan and Zakharov that
describe turbulent energy cascades. He viewed the ocean as a unique
fluid dynamics laboratory, where one could usually find the right
ocean region to observe a wide array of fundamental nonlinear
phenomena. His scientific philosophy was in the Landau and Lifshitz
style of the country of his birth, seeking to understand broad,
universal phenomena in terms of idealized models, complementing the
more detail-oriented, Earth feature-specific large-scale numerical
models.
Roman was born on June 26, 1948 in Leningrad, USSR. He earned his
B.S. and M.S. in Oceanography at the Leningrad Hydrometeorology
Institute in 1971, during which period he also spent several months
shipboard with an oceanographic expedition in the White Sea,
developing a rapport with the Captain and crew, who did their best
to educate him in the essential relation between vodka and quality
of life. As was the pattern of civil service in the USSR, he was
then sent to the Kamchatka peninsula for three fondly remembered
years of ``practice'' as an Engineer-Oceanographer at the Kamchatka
Weather Bureau. There he developed marine forecasts of surface
waves, tides, water temperature, salinity, and coastal currents. He
also accompanied a number of scientific expeditions to the region's
volcanos.
He returned in 1974 to the Leningrad branch of the State
Oceanographic Institute, and in 1975 moved to Moscow's Shirshov
Institute of Oceanology. However, his dissertation, on
radio-interferential remote sensing of sea level in coastal zones,
was not submitted for political reasons related to his decision to
emigrate from the USSR in 1979. In 1980 he ultimately found refuge
at the University of Rhode Island, where he published much of his
Russian work, and worked on acoustic properties of microbubbles. He
obtained a Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography there in 1985 under the
supervision of Melvin Stern. He joined the JPL physical oceanography
group that same year.
High resolution satellite altimeters provide the ability to view
very large scale, long period, coherent ocean motions, including
tides, ocean currents, internal gravity waves, and Rossby waves.
Since these motions have distinct space-time scales, they may be
isolated through appropriate filtering. Roman and his collaborators
were able to construct spectra for these different motions, verify
turbulent predictions, provide evidence for the existence of
equatorially trapped solitary waves, and explore latitude dependence
of ocean transport.
Roman also analyzed surface chlorophyll concentration, which is
freely advected by ocean motion, inferred from ocean color data.
Visually striking fractal patterns are observed due to the action of
turbulent eddies and wave motions. Theory provides distinct
predictions for each, and Roman was able to identify different ocean
regions where each could be verified.
Remote inference of the depth profiles of ocean currents would be of
incalculable benefit to ocean dynamics and climate studies. Roman
explored the idea that the ocean-induced component of the magnetic
field, generated by electrical currents induced by the Lorentz force
acting on ions transported through the Earth's static field, could
be inverted to provide ocean current maps. Meaningful results
require very detailed understanding of interfering magnetic noise
processes, such as the solar wind, and its practicality lies at the
edge of current technology and remains an open question.
Roman has had tremendous influence on a small core of theoretical
physicists and applied mathematicians, who joined him in deriving
quantitative supporting theories of his observational results. Roman
worked at JPL through a number of periods of uncertainty and flux in
NASA funding. Through it all, Roman remained true to his instincts
for good, basic science. He was generous to a fault, maintaining
financial support for co-workers even when it threatened his own
support. It was this personal integrity and good humor, combined
with his passion for science, that nurtured so many of his
scientific collaborations and deep friendships, and made the sudden,
unexpected end of his life all the more tragic. He will be deeply
missed.
Signed:
Peter B. Weichman,
BAE Systems, Burlington, MA;
Benny Cheng,
Jet Propulsion Laboratory;
Meric Srokosz,
National Oceanography Centre, UK;
Vladimir Ivchenko,
Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany;
Gregory Falkovich,
Weizmann Institute, Israel;
Alexander Balk,
University of Utah;
Boris Galperin,
University of South Florida;
Anatoly Fabrikant,
KLA-Tencor, San Jose, CA;
Yury Golubev,
Raytheon, Fullerton, CA;
Michael Wilkinson,
Open University, UK.
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