National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
United States Department of Commerce


 
[Full Text]

FY 2010

A Tsunami Forecast Model for Newport, Oregon

Righi, D., and D. Arcas

NOAA OAR Special Report, PMEL Tsunami Forecast Series: Vol. 5, 80 pp (2010)


The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has developed a tsunami forecast model for Newport, Oregon, as part of an effort to provide tsunami forecasts for United States coastal communities. Development of a tsunami forecast model for this economically important and populous coastal community and subsequent validation and stability testing have been conducted to ensure model robustness and stability. The Newport tsunami forecast model employs the optimized version of the Method of Splitting Tsunami (MOST) numerical code and has been validated with historical events as well as with synthetically generated mega Mw = 9.3 events. A total of six historical tsunamis and 16 synthetic mega events were used for validation and stability testing of the Newport forecast model. Validation results show good agreement between observed and modeled data, thus providing a quantitative estimate of the tsunami time series, inundation, and runup at Newport for tested events. Model development also involves the construction of a high-resolution reference model used to monitor the deviation of forecast results from those computed with a more accurate, higher-resolution model. Results show that the forecast model developed for Newport, Oregon, is capable of generating 4 hr of tsunami simulation in less than 10 min of CPU time for all scenarios tested.



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