By: Staff Writer
November 30, 2021
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to predict the magnitude of a tropical storm or hurricane before it makes landfall like Hurricanes Dorian, Maria and Irma did? Well, this Bahamian scientist has found a way with the help of Chinese technology and tutelage.
Brandon Bethel, a Bahamian finishing up his doctoral degree in Marine Meteorology at the Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST) says- with the guidance of Professor’s Changming Dong and Dr. Jin Wang- that he has perfected a model that can predict hurricanes with great accuracy.
Mr Bethel said, “The model is termed the ‘Caribbean Sea Empirical Wind-Wave Model’, and it is an improvement upon the previous state-of-the-art ‘South China Sea Empirical Wind-Wave Model’ developed by researchers Qianru Niu and Yanqing Feng in March of 2021.
“The model takes inputs of hurricane surface wind fields and predicts the corresponding ocean wave field. Predictions using the Caribbean Sea Wind-Wave model are far more accurate than those made with the South China Sea Wind-Wave model, but also at significantly reduced errors and computational cost as compared to traditional numerical models.”
What does this mean? This means that Brandon has taken old Chinese technology for predicting weather patterns and made it useful for the Caribbean at less cost and less time consuming.
MR Bethel is nearing the completion of his doctoral degree in Marine Meteorology. He is a physical oceanographer with expertise in surface ocean waves and the surface layer of the overlying atmosphere.
Extreme wind and wave conditions as forced by hurricanes is a major facet of his research that is conducted through ocean numerical modeling, observations, and artificial intelligence/machine learning algorithms. He has been in Nanjing, China since 2011 and I plan to return to The Bahamas following graduation in June, 2022.
Mr Bethel also said: “I have been working on this model since the landfalling of Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas on September 1, 2019. Although I was in China starting my doctoral work and did not have to witness nor endure the damage and destruction wrought by the storm personally, Dorian’s impact on the country nevertheless was painfully transferred to me through my family and friends that resided in Abaco, Grand Bahama, and New Providence.
“To this day, many communities in Abaco and Grand Bahama have yet to recover, lives there both changed and lost forever – this was the impetus to rigorously derive a mathematical equation that could be used with minimal computational cost, rapidly, and be better than the current state-of-the-art at converting easily accessible satellite measurements or numerical model-generated wind fields into corresponding wave fields.
“These wave fields can then be communicated to the public through organizations responsible for protecting us from nature’s worst, such as the Bahamas Department of Meteorology and the National Emergency Management Agency. Having an understanding of the wave field, for the average citizen or resident, would provide a deeper understanding of the intensity of a given hurricane and its potential impact on their survival.”
“The model has been tested on just under a dozen hurricanes that occurred within the Caribbean Sea from 2010 – 2019,” said Brando and specifically for wind and wave information from Hurricane Dorian after its September 1, 2019.
He added: “The empirical model should roughly be applicable in any tropical cyclone basin around the world, though there are some meteorological and oceanic caveats for its usage.”
Brandon also said, “Crucially, predictions of hurricane-forced wave fields can be made rapidly and at extremely minor costs in required computing power or expertise (that is, the model will work quite happily in Microsoft Excel). This would be essential in categorizing the risk that coastal areas face from hurricanes. Future Dorian-type catastrophes can be mitigated, if not avoided.
Noting that the storm surges and waves are more deadly than the 90mph plus winds, MR Bethel said: “These walls of water wash away roads, mangle the thick and robust electrical poles, and wipe a significant portions of civilization away.
“When winds, waves, and storm surge act in concert, as they did during Hurricane Dorian, the only thing that could result is catastrophe, unfortunately of the likeness of Hurricane Dorian. These events repeat on national and regional scales, amounting to lives and billions due to infrastructural damage and economic productivity lost. The changing climate will intensify hurricanes and make them more frequent. The model will make hurricane-forced wave predictions more accurate and can thus give individuals, communities, our nation, and the region more time to be proactive, rather than reactive.”
Can this mathematical model be used anywhere in the world, one may ask and Mr Bethel said: “As a mathematical equation, it is an idea that could and should be spread throughout the region for usage by the various meteorological/oceanographic departments. It is simple and can be easily used regardless of an individual’s level of training.
He added: “In personal monetary terms, the cost is exactly the cost of twenty-five years of continuous primary, secondary, and higher education. Following that investment, the costs were borne in time, effort, and not a few failures on a simple personal computer. The research is available at no additional cost to the public and following proper citation,
can be used freely in follow-up studies.