U.S. Water News Online
SEATTLE -- Hours after an earthquake-driven tidal wave slammed into coastlines from Asia to Africa, a 1,000-mile-long tsunami sped across Vasily Titov's computer screen.
The re-creation is part of research here to develop a new forecasting system to better protect coastal communities from disasters like the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck near Indonesia. The quake generated tsunamis that killed more than 120,000 people across a dozen countries.
"Our goal is to have results (a tsunami prediction) in 15 minutes or less" after an earthquake, said Titov, a mathematician and computer modeler on an elite team of tsunami researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory here.
The lab pioneered the first real-time early warning system for tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported. It's now part of an international effort to accurately and rapidly forecast the path of massive waves that follow a major deep-sea quake.
Titov's digitized tsunami showed the wall of water traveling about 500 mph westward from Sumatra toward Sri Lanka and India. The results aren't exact, he said, but a rapid forecast and alert system based on the seismic and bathymetric (sea floor topography) data could have saved lives.
The forecasting system could be tested within a year. But experts believe many could have been saved had the Indian Ocean been outfitted with the lab's deep-sea tsunameters, now deployed mostly in the northern Pacific Ocean.
"Some locations would have had two hours to warn and evacuate people," said Dr. Frank Gonzalez, who heads the research team.
A tsunameter is a sophisticated pressure gauge placed on the ocean floor that sends signals to a surface buoy that radios information to a satellite. Scientists receive the data and determine whether a warning is appropriate.
In the early 1990s, scientists recognized the Pacific Northwest could be at risk from an earthquake like the one that struck off the coast of Sumatra.
Washington began developing a tsunami warning and evacuation system, primarily for high-risk communities along the Pacific coast.
Gonzalez' team also has worked with state officials to map the regions most likely to be affected by a tsunami. Some areas have evacuation drills, with sirens and escape routes posted. Schools also educate children about the risk.
In 2001, Gonzalez and Dr. Eddie Bernard, director of the NOAA lab and an internationally recognized leader in tsunami research, deployed their first deep-ocean tsunami detector.
Bernard said a goal is to eliminate false alarms like in 1986, when Hawaii lost some $40 million because of an alert for a tsunami that never came ashore.
A tsunami warning here in 1994 also prompted unnecessary evacuations along the Pacific coast, said Mark Clemens, spokesman for the Washington State Emergency Management Division.
"Things are much more predictable now," he said.
Today there are six tsunameters in the Pacific Ocean, Bernard said, calling it the bare minimum for adequate warning.
"We probably need more like 20," he said, noting failure of one instrument could create a serious delay in alerting communities of an oncoming tsunami.
The NOAA lab wants to expand the deep-sea tsunameter network and add its latest computer modeling to improve the speed and accuracy of the tsunami warning system.
"We're showing that this can be done," Gonzalez said.
Return to the U.S. Water News' Archives page Or Return to the U.S. Water News Homepage
Editor@uswaternews.com
*Your Name:
*Your Email:
*Friend's Email:
Use a comma to separate e-mail addresses:
*Your Comments:
Hi, I thought you might like to read this article.
*Required Fields