A Decade of Creating Data Visualizations for Online Video Content: The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center’s Earthquake and Tsunami Animations
As part of its outreach efforts toward mitigating tsunami hazards, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) began posting computer animations to its first official social media site, it’s Facebook Page, in August of 2012. Nearly a year later, in June of 2013, PTWC also gained a YouTube channel and has been posting new content there ever since. PTWC produced its initial video content for these sites by adapting the data visualizations it had previously generated for a NOAA Science-on-a-Sphere (SOS) exhibit at Honolulu’s Bishop Museum. PTWC had originally adapted these SOS visualizations from the map displays it developed for its tsunami warning operations showing historic earthquake and tsunami activity and of tsunami forecast model output. Through 2015 PTWC experimented with display style while releasing new animations on the anniversaries of significant historic tsunamis and for Tsunami Awareness Month in Hawaiʻi. At the same time PTWC continued to develop its animation code, ultimately leading to real-time wave-propagation animations for both YouTube and SOS. Through collaboration with an outreach specialist and with feedback from colleagues and test audiences PTWC then created a standardized set of animations of historic tsunamis and global earthquake activity for both YouTube and SOS, and again released individual animations to the public on significant anniversaries over 2016-2017. From 2018 through 2020 events prompted the creation of animations focused on seismic activity at local and regional scales for Kīlauea Volcano, Puerto Rico, and California. Since then PTWC has continued to innovate with new animations for recent and historic events such as three simultaneous tsunamis in 2021 and a 120-year sequence of historic earthquakes and tsunamis. Links: https://www.youtube.com/user/PacificTWC; https://sos.noaa.gov/.
Session: Using Data and Experience to Improve Geohazards Communication
Type: Oral
Room: Grand B
Date: 4/20/2022
Presentation Time: 02:30 PM Pacific
Presenting Author: Nathan C. Becker
Student Presenter: No
Additional Authors
Nathan Becker Presenting Author Corresponding Author nathan.becker@noaa.gov NOAA, NWS, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center |
Dailin Wang dailin.wang@noaa.gov NOAA, NWS, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center |
Leon Geschwind leon.geschwind@noaa.gov NOAA, Inouye Regional Center |
Gerard Fryer gerard@hawaii.edu University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa |
Cindi Preller cindi.preller@noaa.gov NOAA, NWS, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center |
Bill Ward bill.ward@noaa.gov NOAA, NWS, Radar Operations Center |
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A Decade of Creating Data Visualizations for Online Video Content: The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center’s Earthquake and Tsunami Animations
Category
Using Data and Experience to Improve Geohazards Communication
Description