Course Program
Tsunami and Storm-Surge Simulation
With the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, hurricane Katrina, cyclone Nargis, and the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, four of the major catastrophic events of the recent past were related to tsunamis and storm surges, which has triggered an intense research interest in the field.
In this lecture series we will introduce current techniques and new approaches that have surfaced from this research – starting with modeling techniques for tsunami wave propagation, including inundation of coastal areas. We will also deal with questions of tsunami generation (as coupled earthquake-tsunami events) and discuss embedding of numerical simulation into tsunami warning systems. The second part of the lecture series will extend the foundation of tsunami models to storm-surge models including the propagation of the storm, and the types of forcing (from atmospheric models) including rain accumulation and inundation algorithms. Finally, we will discuss techniques and possibilities for validation and verification of the models.
The course will be organized into the following lectures:
- Governing Equations: 1D shallow water equations (derivation and properties)
- The 2D shallow water equations as a model for tsunami wave propagation
- Modeling inundation of tsunami waves (including a general discussion on boundary conditions)
- Modeling the generation of tsunamis
- Storm surges: modeling external forces
- Dealing with uncertainties in the modeling chain
- Case studies: tsunami and storm surge simulations based on real bathymetry data and realistic initial conditions
- Validation and verification of the models and simulations