Local Professor Making Category Five Worldwide Impact

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. – Houses, communities and countless lives that were unprepared for the power and intensity a hurricane can bring have been destroyed in the past. Dr. Isaac Ginis, Professor of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, has the task of better predicting these storms intensity, as well as tracking and forecasting them in order to warn the public, and emergency crews ahead of time as to what is headed their way.

Scientists and hurricane experts have spent many years tracking and forecasting hurricanes, which has resulted in accurate predictions of what path a hurricane may take, and where it will make landfall. As time goes on we are continuously getting better at this because of the advances in technology we are making. Better technology equals better, and longer predictions.

“The first question is always where the storm will be, five, seven days from now,” Dr. Ginis said.

With more than half of the United States population living within 50 miles of the coastline, no matter where the storm makes landfall there are going to be significant economic implications.

Unlike predicting the path we are not as good at predicting the intensity of the storms. A hurricane gets its energy from the ocean. The temperature of the water is key with 80 degrees Fahrenheit being ideal for these storms. Due to this, hurricanes can only form in the summer because they need evaporation to gain strength. The warmer the water, the more evaporation that will happen inside the hurricane. In order to understand the intensity of the storms we need to get to ground zero, in the hurricane itself. A lot of times this is far too dangerous of a job for humans to do. Fortunately, this is where another part of Dr. Ginis’s work comes into play.

Along with using his mathematical equations to forecast hurricanes, he also works along side his colleagues with newer kinds of technology that will help us better predict the intensity of the storms.

Unmanned underwater robots called Gliders are being sent into hurricanes to collect three dimensional ocean observations, such as water temperature, salinity, and speed and direction of ocean currents. This collected data, along with the forecasting data that Dr. Ginis collects at URI, goes through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Data Buoy Center, and from there is sent to places like the National Weather Service, the United States Navy, and other data users for modeling. Dr. Ginis still thinks we have a big challenge on our hands because recently some Glider models have not done well.

He gave some reasons as to why we should remain optimistic about the future of Gliders. “Technology is continuously growing and is getting better every year,” which will prove to be a huge help he thinks.

Predicting a hurricane’s intensity is vital to us because by better understanding just how bad a storm will be, emergency crews and safety officials can save lives by warning the public ahead of time with the highly accurate forecasts and models that Mathematicians and Scientists like Dr. Ginis provide us with.