PTWC Creating a New Catalog of Historic Tsunami Animations for NOAA Science-on-a-Sphere Exhibits

Throughout 2016 the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) has been developing a catalog of tsunami animations for NOAA's Science on a Sphere (SOS) display system. The SOS consists of a six-foot (1.8 m) diameter sphere that serves as a projection screen for four high-definition video projectors that can show any global dataset. SOS systems have been installed in over 100 locations around the world, primarily in venues such as science museums. Education and outreach are a vital part of PTWC's mission and SOS can show the global impacts of tsunami hazards in an intuitive and engaging presentation analogous to a planetarium. PTWC has been releasing these animations for the anniversaries of significant tsunamis throughout the year and has so far has produced them for Cascadia 1700, Chile 2010, Japan 2011, Aleutian Islands 1946, Alaska 1964, and Chile 1960, and before the end of the year the library will include Samoa 2009 and Sumatra 2004. PTWC created these animations at 8k video resolution to future-proof them against SOS upgrades such as higher definition projectors and larger spheres. Though not the first SOS tsunami animations, these are the first ones to show impacts to coastlines, the criteria that PTWC uses to determine the tsunami hazard guidance it will issue to the coastal populations it serves. These animations also all use a common color scheme based on PTWC's alert criteria such that they will be consistent with each other as well as with PTWC's tsunami messages. PTWC created these animations using the same tsunami forecast model it routinely uses in its warning operations, and PTWC has even demonstrated that it can produce a SOS tsunami animation while a tsunami was still crossing the Pacific Ocean, and so this library of animations can also be used to prepare docents and audiences to interpret such a real-time animation should it become available for the next major tsunami. One does not need access to a SOS exhibit, however, to view these animations. NOAA also maintains a website where these animations can be viewed in a web browser. The site also allows a user to download these data along with software such that they may be viewed on a personal computer. PTWC also maintains a YouTube channel with Mercator-projected versions of these animations that are in the same style and color scheme as their SOS counterparts.