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Waves of the Future

The original idea for CDIP sprouted in Richard Seymour's mind on his way home to San Diego from a conference on ocean waves in New Orleans more than 30 years ago. Sitting there on an airplane, Seymour kept replaying the keynote speaker's main message over and over in his head. The orator chided the ocean community for its lack of long-term data from the coastline. More data on waves, he pleaded.

The appeal stuck with Seymour. An aerospace engineer-turned-oceanographer, Seymour and engineer Meredith Sessions had successfully developed new technology to use telephone lines to remotely communicate with a test buoy in San Diego Bay.

Following the conference, Seymour approached the California Department of Boating and Waterways about establishing a handful of wave-measurement buoys using the new technology. They bought into the idea and CDIP was born with a single buoy installed in Imperial Beach, south of San Diego, in 1975.

Two years later the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers became a funding partner and the program blossomed. In the years that followed, key personnel, including lead CDIP waves scientist William O'Reilly and program manager Julie Thomas, helped push the program far beyond its original scientific objectives.

Today's network features about 20 buoys along the California coast, with additional stations in Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, and Guam. Instruments in Louisiana and Florida have begun a southeastern U.S. presence. Buoys transmit wave height, swell direction, and water temperature in near real-time to CDIP's website. Backed by three decades of knowledge, the scientists and their sophisticated analytical techniques now deliver maps and models with present wave activity, also called "nowcasts," as well as three- and five-day forecasts, all with uncanny accuracy.

The ability to deliver such precise knowledge of coastal conditions, it turned out, was a far hotter commodity than Seymour could have ever imagined. Hundreds of companies catering to surfing audiences now capture and repackage CDIP data. Harbormasters and Navy vessel navigators use its data about currents to route ships through coastal waters. On any given day, upwards of tens of thousands of users tap into CDIP data.

CDIP data even guided Navy search and rescue efforts after an Alaska Airlines jetliner crashed off Ventura in 2000, with scientists providing information about the height, direction, and frequency of ocean waves.

Troy Nicolini, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Weather Service office in Eureka, Calif., says he and his colleagues daily access CDIP data for wave modeling and forecasts.

"Most human activities occur within 10 miles of the shore, and that's where you'll find CDIP buoys," said Nicolini. "In severe ocean conditions CDIP's information on wave conditions, including wave period and height, are important for us to evaluate whether or not to issue warnings such as high surf advisories to the public."

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