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Date: 4/22/2021

Session Time: 9:45 AM to 11:00 AM Pacific

Advances in the Science and Observation of Tsunamis

The catastrophic tsunami events originated after the 26 December 2004 Sumatra and 11 2011 Tohoku earthquakes reshaped the technology of the tsunami warning and the global strategy for the tsunami hazard mitigation. Tsunami warning services now cover most of the vulnerable coastlines around the World. New tsunami-specific real-time observation systems have been deployed for operations and the network of real-time data sources is continuously expanding. New data and methods are available for real-time seismic sources assessments of tsunamis. The accuracy, reliability and coverage of the warning services have increased.

However, significant challenges still exist as large tsunamis of the last decade have shown. Over 30 significant events that occurred since the 2011 Tohoku revealed many new gaps in the tsunami warning and hazard mitigation strategies. The death toll of over 5000 from just two tsunamis in Indonesia in 2018 demonstrated that much more needs to be done to make the tsunami warning systems robust and effective. The science of tsunamigenity of the seismic sources in particular requires more research, as was demonstrated by the two recent strike-slip earthquakes of the 28 September 2018 in Sulawesi and the 19 October 2020 in Alaska that generated unexpectedly strong tsunamis.

The original research on all areas of tsunami science are invited for the session, including seismic tsunami sources studies; tsunami generation, propagation and coastal impacts; research on tsunami hazard mitigation and tsunami warning strategies and other relevant topics.

Conveners

Vasily V. Titov, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (vasily.titov@noaa.gov)
Bruce Jaffe, U.S. Geological Survey (bjaffe@usgs.gov)

Oral Presentations