$1.5 million grant <\/a>from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. <\/p>\nThe URI team has been working on the RI-CHAMP modeling system to predict the impact of major storms as they approach land for about eight years, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a hurricane approaches land, we are not only concerned with the strength of the wind, but with flooding\u2013what we call the storm surge produced by hurricanes,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need a special model that simulates what is going to happen in response to hurricane-force winds to predict storm surge.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the most important requirements of the model was to represent the complexity of the Rhode Island coastline, Ginis said. It required developing a computational grid with a high spatial resolution to accurately show predicted hazards from wind and coastal flooding. In some areas, the model has a spatial resolution of 10 meters. In comparison, the National Weather Service\u2019s best model in the New England area has a spatial resolution of 200 meters, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat allows us to more accurately predict the movement of water in a specific location. That\u2019s key to predicting storm surge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With that detail, the modeling system has the ability to calculate hazards to infrastructure in the smallest of areas\u2013such as a generator room or parking lot. Austin Becker, chair of the URI Department of Marine Affairs, and several of his graduate students worked with state and local officials and facility managers to collect data on critical infrastructure. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe URI team collected the data across the state, mostly in the Providence area, about critical facilities,\u201d Ginis said. \u201cWe built this data into our prediction system. As we forecast hazards, we can simultaneously predict when a facility will be affected. RI-CHAMP includes a web-based, fully interactive dashboard where emergency managers can see in real time where the hazards are and what the impact will be on their facilities or communities.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAs a decision support tool, RI-CHAMP helps emergency managers prepare for storms based on specific, actionable data where we used to rely primarily on instinct and our experience with past storms. The ability to anticipate and prepare for the specific consequences of a given storm forecast is a game changer,\u201d said Sam Adams, a Ph.D. candidate in URI\u2019s Marine Affairs Coastal Resilience Lab who also serves as the University\u2019s full-time emergency management director. <\/p>\n
Along with Ginis and Becker, the URI team included Chris Damon in the URI Environmental Data Center, who helped design the system\u2019s interactive dashboard, and Pam Rubinoff, associate coastal manager in the Coastal Resources Center, who led stakeholder engagement. Also, graduate students in URI\u2019s Graduate School of Oceanography and Department of Marine Affairs had an essential role in the development of the system, Ginis said.<\/p>\n
The system will be in place for the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June through November. NOAA\u2019s seasonal forecast calls for 12 to 17 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), with 5 to 9 becoming full hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher) and 1 to 4 major hurricanes (winds of 111 mph or higher).<\/p>\n
But there are two climate factors that could affect how active the season will be, Ginis said. One is the surface temperature of the ocean in the tropical region\u2013warmer water is favorable to hurricane formation and intensity, he said.<\/p>\n
The other factor is one of two atmospheric phenomena, El Nino and La Nina, which alternate every two to seven years. El Nino, which is forecast for this year, is less favorable for hurricanes to form, than La Nina.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough El Nino is a phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, because of the global teleconnection of wind, it turns out that we have stronger winds in the tropical regions [of the Atlantic Ocean] aloft in the higher atmosphere,\u201d Ginis said. \u201cThat actually is detrimental for hurricane formation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question is how soon will El Nino arrive this season and how strong it is going to be,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
While NOAA\u2019s forecast calls for a less active season than recent years, Ginis reminds coastal residents that it only takes one storm to make landfall near them to make it an active season.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople need to just prepare as usual, regardless of whether it\u2019s a normal or active season,\u201d he said. \u201cI always like to give this example: In 1992, we had only seven named storms\u2014well below the average. But then we had Hurricane Andrew that made landfall near Miami and essentially wiped out Homestead.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With hurricane season just starting, RI has a new storm modeling system. The Rhode Island Coastal Hazards, Analysis, Modeling, and Prediction (RI-CHAMP) system, developed by GSO’s Isaac Ginis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4762,"featured_media":181562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[3053,572,575,2768,2904],"class_list":["post-181561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-climate-resilience","tag-hurricanes","tag-isaac-ginis","tag-storm","tag-storm-surge"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4762"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181561"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181567,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181561\/revisions\/181567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/916\/Isaac-Ginis-copy-364x546.jpg\")