Tsunami Squares: Validation by Comparison to the Regional Ocean Modeling System Tsunami Simulator and Earthquake Driven Inundation Mapping

David Grzan, John B. Rundle, John M. Wilson, & Tony Song

Published July 23, 2019, SCEC Contribution #9247, 2019 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #039

Due to the destructive nature of tsunamis, early warning systems are necessary to avoid loss of human life. This paper outlines the groundwork for such a system that will link Total Electron Content signatures of tsunamis detected by GNSS satellites to maps of inundated areas along the coast. The tsunami simulator that will be used for this early warning system is called Tsunami Squares, a simulator that utilizes a numerical method of solving the shallow water approximation equations over a grid of cells. To validate its accuracy, it was compared to the Regional Ocean Modeling System tsunami simulator, a simulator that solves the Navier-Stokes equations using a finite-difference method. The two simulation techniques showed good agreement over a variety of tests using several different initial conditions. As a preliminary step to creating the early warning method, many earthquakes off the coast Japan were simulated and from those earthquakes, tsunamis were simulated. From the simulated tsunamis, the runup heights along the coast were averaged and mapped, giving us a catalog of earthquakes and inundated locations.

Citation
Grzan, D., Rundle, J. B., Wilson, J. M., & Song, T. (2019, 07). Tsunami Squares: Validation by Comparison to the Regional Ocean Modeling System Tsunami Simulator and Earthquake Driven Inundation Mapping. Poster Presentation at 2019 SCEC Annual Meeting.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Earthquake Forecasting and Predictability (EFP)