New chair to help predict extreme marine events

The Lloyd's Register Educational Trust (The LRET), an independent charity, is funding a research programme in Modeling and Prediction of Marine Environmental Extremes. Dalhousie's Jinyu Sheng, professor in the Department of Oceanography, has been named as the chair leading this programme.

Key Points:

• The LRET will provide 1.2 million pounds (approx. $2.2 mil Cdn) over 5 years. It will establish an international  research network centered at Dalhousie that will include partners from research nodes located at the University of Southampton (UK), University of Melbourne (Australia) and the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil).

• The purpose of The LRET chair and network is to provide research into more accurate short-term predictions and projections of marine extremes such as coastal flooding, tropical storms, hurricanes and storm surges. The research will help lead to better forecasts of extreme marine events and help decision-makers, scientists and the public mitigate the damage these events can cause.

• The research will make extensive use of coupled models for local and global scales. Extreme marine events are often the result of the behavior of a complex and coupled system. By running the models of the system’s components together, models for the ocean, atmosphere and ice flows, the result should be a better prediction. The research will help governments, industry and the public plan and mitigate the damage and protect vulnerable areas while also helping those making forecasts, such as Environment Canada.

• In addition to better forecasts of extreme events like hurricanes and storm surges, the research will also look at the impact of climate change on the frequency of occurrence of marine extremes of wind, coastal sea levels, currents and waves. This will lead to more effective strategies for adaptation to climate change

• Established in 2004 by the Lloyd's Register Group, The LRET is an independent charity operating throughout the world. It funds activities in four categories that form a continuum of support for people from a very young age: Pre-university education, university education, vocational training and professional development and research in fundamental industry research programmes at existing or new 'centres of excellence' at universities and academic institutes.

Pull Quotes:

• “Research will look into more reliable short and medium term forecasts of marine environmental extremes and look at the projection or estimation of the frequency of occurrence over the next decades and century. These projections will help protect the infrastructure, coastal communities and human life and present results in a useful way to governments, industry and the public." - Jinyu Sheng, professor of oceanography at Dalhousie and The LRET chairholder.

• “For accurate predictions of the conditions, we need to run weather forecast models for the ocean, atmosphere and ice flows as well. We’re talking about many different types of extremes across the planet so we need different models. The researchers in Brazil and Australia need different models and we see great benefit in combining our research efforts. This is why we have a global network of scientists and meteorologists working with these complexities to provide better forecasts.” - Jinyu Sheng, professor of oceanography at Dalhousie and The LRET chairholder.

• “The information on coastal flooding is not only useful to the general public, but to city planners and decision makers. This will help planners design communities away from high-risk areas and better protect what’s there. It will also help industry design and protect ships, transportation, ocean platforms and so on that will be impacted by the ocean.” - Jinyu Sheng, professor of oceanography at Dalhousie and The LRET chairholder.

• “In the next century the global sea level is expected to rise more than one meter and that’s very significant. What will be the impact on the economy, industry and human life and life in general?” - Jinyu Sheng, professor of oceanography at Dalhousie and The LRET chairholder.

• “Industry, government and the public need to know about extreme marine events to plan for in the future. We hope this research will help prevent accidents and mitigate the effect of marine disasters when they occur. It’s timely and important research and it’s appropriate that it will be centered at Dalhousie.” - Jinyu Sheng, professor of oceanography at Dalhousie and The LRET chairholder.
   

Images:

Jinyu Sheng Dr. Jinyu Sheng, The LRET chairholder and professor of oceanography at Dal Download Hi-Res	Jinyu Sheng Dr. Jinyu Sheng, The LRET chairholder and professor of oceanography at Dal Download Hi-Res	Jinyu Sheng Dr. Jinyu Sheng, The LRET chairholder and professor of oceanography at Dal Download Hi-Res

Contacts:

• Billy Comeau, Communications Officer, Dalhousie University (902) 494-6880, william.comeau@dal.ca
• Charles Crosby, Senior Advisor, Media, Dalhousie University (902) 494-1269, charles.crosby@dal.ca