User:Nblumberg/Alan blumberg

Dr. Alan Blumberg is an American oceanographer and author known for his contributions to the understanding of the interaction between cities and their offshore coastal waters. His areas of interest are in estuarine and coastal ocean hydrodynamic modeling, the analysis and interpretation of physical oceanographic data and the development of transport predictions for problems associated with a host of water quality issues. He is the founder of the emerging discipline of Urban Oceanography and a Fellow of both the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Meteorological Society.

Blumberg’s work addresses the implications of sea level rise and global warming on the evolution of urban-environment interactions to create sustainable and resilient 21st century coastal city regions through the use of numerical ocean models and observations. He is the co-developer of the Princeton Ocean Model (POM) 4 and its shallow water derivative, the Estuarine and Coastal Ocean Model, and the author, with Michael Bruno, of The Urban Ocean: The Interaction of Cities With Water (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Blumberg’s career has encompassed research and academia, business and entrepreneurship, and consulting to both public and private sector organizations.

Since January 30, 2018, he has been Co-founder and Chief Scientist, Hydroscience Risk Analysis, of Jupiter Intelligence, a privately held, U.S.-based startup that specializes in the global analysis of probable future physical risks to people and property from extreme weather driven by climate change.

Early life and education

The son of a civil engineer, Blumberg was born and grew up in the U.S. Panama Canal Zone, 6 where he often swam in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans—with their different salinities and currents—on the same day, piquing his interest in oceanography, ocean currents, physics, and fluid mechanics. 7 He earned his undergraduate degree in physics from Fairleigh Dickinson University (1970), then his masters (1973) and Ph.D. (1976) degrees in Earth and Planetary Science from The Johns Hopkins University. 8

Career

The Princeton Ocean Model

Blumberg then conducted post-doctoral research at Princeton University, where in collaboration with George Mellor they developed the Princeton Ocean Model, now the standard in coastal ocean modeling. Blumberg continued his work on the POM at HydroQual, an environmental engineering and consulting firm, where he was principal scientist between 1985 and 2002. There, the POM morphed into the Estuarine and Coastal Ocean Model, most applicable for shallow waters near the coasts.

The POM remains in use throughout the world to inform environmental studies, vessel and shipping operations, and maritime security issues. The predictive model was notably used in 2010 to study the potential effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Academia and Urban Oceanography

In 2002, Blumberg joined the faculty of Stevens Institute of Technology, where he spent over 15 years as the George Meade Bond Professor of Ocean Engineering. He also spent two years a member and chair of the Institute’s Faculty Council (2008-2010) and another two years as chair of its Department of Civil, Environmental, and Ocean Engineering.

As the director of Stevens’ Davidson Laboratory between 2007 and 2018, Blumberg led several major studies to predict and assess storm flooding events. His research at Stevens focused on the physics of water in an urban setting as a guide to all disciplines involved in urban coastal resilience. In considering the environmental context—air, water, and land—in which all urban design takes place, it introduced the fundamental principles of Urban Oceanography, and created the foundation of an emerging science of coastal city-environment interaction.

Blumberg also created, with the help of his Ph.D. student and colleague Nickitas Georgas, the New York Harbor Observing and Prediction System (NYHOPS), which assesses ocean, weather, and environmental conditions throughout the rivers and coastal waters of the region. Insights from this work yielded multiple articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference presentations, 9 as well as the book The Urban Ocean, published in 2018.

Jupiter Intelligence

Blumberg returned to private business in late January 2018 as Co-founder and Chief Scientist, Hydroscience Risk Analysis, of Jupiter Intelligence, a start-up company that offers probabilistic projections of the physical impacts of extreme weather, driven by climate change, on people, communities, buildings, and individual assets. In 2021, Blumberg retired and now resides in Florida.

Honors and appointments

Among his honors and appointments, Blumberg received the 2001 Karl Emil Hilgard Hydraulic Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers and the 2007 Denny Medal from the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology.

As an expert in Maritime Domain Awareness, Blumberg has served on public boards and technical committees, including for the Environmental Protection Agency, NOAA, American Meteorological Society, and the Integrated Ocean Observing System, [1] and has collaborated with UNESCO/Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. [6]

Publications, consulting and media

In addition to co-authoring The Urban Ocean, Blumberg is a former associate editor of Estuaries and the Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, and the author of more than 150 journal articles about Urban Oceanography alone. 11 As a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board, he was a co-author of Hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico.

Because of his extensive research, Blumberg has been consulted by both public safety agencies 12 and national media as a domain expert during unusual weather conditions. 13 The New York Times has interviewed him about his contributions to first responders during emergencies in the Hudson River, particularly US Airways Flight 1549, 14 15 the now-famous January 2009 emergency landing by a jetliner in the river. He also has appeared on CNBC, ABC’s Good Morning America, The Weather Channel, the National Geographic Channel's Naked Science, and New York area television stations, and been interviewed by Mother Jones and Popular Science.

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External links

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