Recent updates in NGDC water level processing system with application to the Great Tohoku event of March 11, 2011
Abstract
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) is responsible for archive of and access to non-real time data supporting tsunami forecast, research, mitigation, and education. High-resolution DART® tsunameter and coastal tide-gauge data are processed, analyzed and then used to improve model-based real-time forecasting, tsunami mitigation and education efforts.This includes tsunami event, impacts, post-event field surveys, as well as instrumental data from deep-ocean tsunameters and coastal tide gauges. This paper presents recent improvements in the post-event processing of the instrumental water level data at NGDC. Fundamentals of the US Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami (DART®) system were established by NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) in early 1980s. The DART® system became operational in 2002. Now NOAA's National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) manages field surveys, maintenance and distribution of real-time data to Tsunami Warning Centers (TWCs). NOAA Center for Tsunami Research (NCTR) at PMEL develops forecasting methods and supports trouble-shooting of the tsunameter network. NOAA's Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) provides 1-minute data for selected coastal tide-gauge stations in real-time mode to the TWCs. High-resolution DART® tsunameter and coastal tide-gauge data processed by NGDC are analyzed and used to improve model-based real-time forecasting, tsunami mitigation and education efforts. At the moment, the DART® high-resolution data archive at NGDC includes more than 110 processed records from the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and the Caribbean Seas from all deployments starting from 2002. NGDC recently started processing and archiving 1-minute data from 289 coastal tide-gauge stations. Based on the experience obtained in processing DART® and coastal tide-gauge data from the Great Tohoku event of March 11, 2011, new improvements in the NGDC processing system were introduced. All steps of the preliminary data control, processing, analysis and presentation have been improved. Special attention is paid to quality control, automatic detection and fixing of all instrumental and other issues in the data records. A new module for preliminary estimation of residuals from DART® real-time observations and from coastal tide-gauge stations is under development and extensive testing. Updated data are included in the NGDC Global Historical Tsunami Database and presented on re-designed tsunami event pages (http://ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/). All components of the processing system are described and visualized using Great Tohoku event data.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFMNH43B1653M
- Keywords:
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- 4262 OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL / Ocean observing systems;
- 4304 NATURAL HAZARDS / Oceanic;
- 4313 NATURAL HAZARDS / Extreme events;
- 4315 NATURAL HAZARDS / Monitoring;
- forecasting;
- prediction