Internal gravity waves are now a part of mainstream meteorology. Calculations
of the atmospheric budgets, whether at the largest scales of the general circulation
or the smaller scales of surface turbulence, routinely include contributions from
wave transport and mixing. Waves were not always paid such respect: I recall
conferences where an eminent proponent of waves and their effects in the middle
atmosphere (C.O.H) would be confronted by colleagues who disputed the very
existence of internal gravity waves. But the success of models in which stresses
from breaking waves drive the middle-atmosphere circulation have made waveskeptics
an endangered species. Most atmospheric scientists now recognize the
need to evaluate the function of waves in each dynamical situation.