Oceanographer Isaac Ginis has pitched the idea to a receptive Governor Carcieri in what would be a collaboration between the university and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

01:00 AM EST on Monday, December 19, 2005

BY PETER B. LORD
Journal Environment Writer

Scientists at the University of Rhode Island are asking the state to support the creation of a new scientific institute that would work to improve the nation's hurricane-forecasting system and to improve climate modeling for New England and upstate New York.

Isaac Ginis and Lewis Rothstein, two oceanographers at URI who have played key roles in improving national hurricane-forecast models, proposed the institute to Governor Carcieri several months ago. The governor said last week during an interview that he was interested.

"You should build on your strengths,"Carcieri said. And the school of oceanography, he said, is a strength for Rhode Island.

Ginis had the opportunity to pitch the plan to Carcieri when he accompanied him on a trip to a conference for the New England governors and Eastern Canadian premiers in Newfoundland in September.

The institute would be a collaboration between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the university. NOAA would contribute $16.5 million over five years, and the university would be required to provide personnel and other support totaling $1 million during the same period.

Rhode Island is also negotiating with NOAA to make Rhode Island the home port of a new research and exploration vessel the agency is building.

Carcieri said he was hosting another meeting of the New England governors and Eastern Canadian premiers in Newport in May, and NOAA's administrator, Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., is expected to attend.

Ginis said last week that while the institute would be staffed with scientists and academics, he believes it would attract private business investors who have a stake in knowing more about coming weather events.

Ginis described the proposed institute during a lunch for Prof. Kerry Emanuel, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was speaking at URI about his new book on hurricanes, Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes.

Emanuel described Ginis as "one of the world's great hurricane authorities."

The institute would implement state-of-the-art forecast systems for regional hurricanes and droughts, Ginis explained. He said the forecasts would be useful to the insurance and energy industries, homeland security, public health and more. It would also train 25 graduate students and scientists in five years.

The institute would also begin to research the effects on society of regional climate change in New England, Ginis said. In doing so, it would collaborate with Brown University and Harvard University.