Evaluating the predictive skills of ocean circulation models in tracking the drift of a human body: a case study

Ocean circulation models are frequently used in maritime Search and Rescue operations due to their skill in simulating the effects of local currents on the transport of people or objects. They are also occasionally used in forensic contexts. Frequently, positively or neutrally buoyant passive particles are used in these simulations, as a proxy for the objects' in the study. In this paper, the adequacy of passive particle model simulations is tested in an attempt to reproduce the drift of a real case situation. The case study consists of a drowning accident in which the drift was similar to 2km for a post-mortem submersion interval (PMSI) of 8.6days. The simulation results highlighted the limitation of the methodology to predict the correct drift. However, we discuss the shortcomings of the modelling approach, and suggest ways to improve the skill of such numerical tools in predicting body drift after drowning accidents.