The ice chasers
平特五不中 prof and NRC/CIS team use computer model to track icebergs, tips and all
Nearly a century after crewman Frederick Fleet clanged the warning bell and yelled 鈥淚ceberg, straight ahead!鈥� much too late from the crow鈥檚 nest of the doomed Titanic, navigation in so-called 鈥淚ceberg Alley鈥� along the Grand Banks southeast of Newfoundland remains fraught with the constant threat of collision with a massive, drifting monolith of ice.
Now, a group of Canadian scientists, including Dr. Stuart Savage, 平特五不中 emeritus professor of civil engineering and applied mechanics, has developed a unique computational model that reduces that threat by predicting where an iceberg is headed, buying precious time the crew of the Titanic never had.
鈥淓ven a chunk of ice that鈥檚 just five or six meters in diameter can do a lot of damage to a ship,鈥� said Dr. Savage. 鈥淲hat we want to do is to prevent the probability of a collision or an oil spill before it鈥檚 even a danger.鈥�
According to the NRC鈥檚 Institute for Ocean Technology, there have been more than 50 collisions with icebergs in the North Atlantic over the past 50 years, the most lethal of which was on Jan. 30, 1959, when 95 people died after a European vessel, the Hans Hedtof, struck a berg and sank on the return leg of its maiden voyage.
鈥淏ecause we have the benefit of technology, the likelihood today of an iceberg collision has been significantly reduced,鈥� Dr. Savage said. 鈥淣evertheless they still happen.鈥�
Dr. Savage, along with scientists from the National Research Council Canadian Hydraulics Centre (NRC-CHC) and the Canadian Ice Service (CIS), created a computerized forecasting model. It uses data on location and estimated size, as well as wind and sea conditions, to calculate the drift paths of the largest of the thousands of icebergs that drift into the North Atlantic every year from the massive glaciers of West Greenland. With that information, a ship鈥檚 captain can decide to change course to move out of harm鈥檚 way 鈥� or, to protect an oil rig, the iceberg itself can be sent off its collision course by being carefully towed in a different direction. The project was funded by Natural Resources Canada鈥檚 Program of Energy Research and Development (PERD).
The model runs on desktop computers and works by simulating existing conditions based on information gathered by iceberg observers, either at sea or on air patrol. It then uses equations based on the physics of motion to predict the trajectory of icebergs, which Savage noted can travel at a rate of a metre per second, depending on atmospheric and oceanographic conditions.
Testing in the Grand Banks has shown the Canadian computational model to be at least 30 percent more accurate than the existing forecasting model developed by the International Ice Patrol, a division of the U.S. Coast Guard established in the wake of the Titanic disaster. The organizations are working closely together to fully implement the new forecasting system, once it鈥檚 been tested in other regions of North America to validate results to date.
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