Course Program

Tsunami and Storm-Surge Simulation

With the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, hurricane Katrina, cyclone Nargis, and the 2011 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 G2S3 2012 lecture series we discussed current techniques and new approaches that have surfaced from this research: modeling techniques for tsunami wave propagation (including inundation of coastal areas), questions of tsunami generation (as coupled earthquake-tsunami events) and embedding of numerical simulation into tsunami warning systems. The second part of the lecture series extended 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. Last but not least, we discussed techniques and possibilities for validation and verification of the models.

The course was organized into the following lectures:

  1. How modeling helps in hazard assessment and early warning (J. Behrens)
  2. Modeling in Storm Surge Forecasting (J. Behrens)
  3. Governing equations: 1D and 2D shallow water equations (J. Behrens)
  4. Tsunami Modeling with unstructured meshes: Development and applications of the finite element model TsunAWI (S. Harig, A. Fuchs)
  5. Modeling inundation and the question of boundary conditions and parameterizations (J. Behrens)
  6. On sensitivity in tsunami modelling (J. Behrens)
  7. Numerical methods for storm surge (K. Mandli)
  8. On validation and verification (J. Behrens)
  9. Dealing with uncertainties in the modeling chain (J. Behrens)
  10. Interfacing to reality: How to use, visualize, and discuss tsunami modeling results in the scientific and public context (J. Behrens)