Community Benchmarking of Tsunami-Induced Nearshore Current Models

Abstract:

To help produce accurate and consistent maritime hazard products, the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) Strategic Plan includes a requirement to develop and run a benchmarking workshop to evaluate the numerical tsunami modeling of currents. For this workshop, five different benchmarking datasets were organized. These datasets were selected based on characteristics such as geometric complexity, currents that are shear/separation driven (and thus are de-coupled from the incident wave forcing), tidal coupling, and interaction with the built environment. While tsunami simulation models have generally been well validated against wave height and runup, comparisons with speed data are much less common. As model results are increasingly being used to estimate or indicate damage to coastal infrastructure, understanding the accuracy and precision of speed predictions becomes of important. As a result of this 2-day workshop held in early 2015, modelers now have a better awareness of their ability to accurately capture the physics of tsunami currents, and therefore a better understanding of how to use these simulation tools for hazard assessment and mitigation efforts. In this presentation, the model results – from 14 different modelers – will be presented and summarized, with a focus on statistical and ensemble properties of the current predictions.