In this paper, we reconstruct the meteorological and optical environment during the time of Titanic’s disaster utilizing a state-of-the-art meteorological model, a ray-tracing code, and a unique public-domain dataset called the Twentieth Century Global Reanalysis. With high fidelity, our simulation captured the occurrence of an unusually high Arctic pressure system over the disaster site with calm wind. It also reproduced the movement of a polar cold front through the region bringing a rapid drop in air temperature. The simulated results also suggest that unusual meteorological conditions persisted several hours prior to the Titanic disaster which contributed to super-refraction and intermittent optical turbulence. However, according to the simulations, such anomalous conditions were not present at the time of the collision of Titanic with an iceberg.

Date Published: 7 October 2014
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 9224, Laser Communication and Propagation through the Atmosphere and Oceans III, 92240Y (7 October 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2063195

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9224:
Laser Communication and Propagation through the Atmosphere and Oceans III
Alexander M. J. van Eijk; Christopher C. Davis; Stephen M. Hammel, Editor(s)