As a UNC graduate student studying marine sciences, Greg Dusek decided on two requirements for his dissertation: That the research was related to coastal oceanography and that it would help the public.
Now a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Dusek is working with colleagues to put the finishing touches on what has evolved into a rip current model for the Nearshore Wave Prediction System (NWPS). Both the model and NWPS provide predictions every hour for every kilometer along the U.S. coastline.
Normally, ocean waves push water up the shoreline and retreat in a fairly uniform fashion. A rip current can happen near breaks in sandbars or humanmade structures. Some waves can break differently, leading to differences in wave height and the formation of a fast current at a perpendicular or acute angle to the shoreline. The resulting rip current can drag away swimmers. Tens of thousands of rip current rescues and an average of 100 deaths occur annually in the U.S. from this phenomena.
Dusek sees a rip current prediction system as just one tool in the public’s beach safety toolbox.
“We recognize that you can have a great model at predicting a hazard but if it’s not reaching people in the right way it’s not going to make a difference,” he says. “One focus at NOAA is improving messaging so people know what to look for, understand the conditions that rips form under, and how to escape safely if they get caught in one.”
Previous models were updated once or twice a day with short prediction times, geographically confined, and defined by broad ratings of low, medium, or high probability.
“The initial system the weather service was using was better than nothing. It provided some information, but it was really limited in scope,” Dusek says.
Dusek’s model has blown older models completely out of the water —something he never expected when he began the project 15 years ago.
Megan May 