Mapping & Modeling Benchmarking Workshop
February 9 - 10, 2015 Portland, Oregon
To help produce accurate and consistent maritime hazard products, the new FY13-17 National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) Strategic Plan includes a requirement of the Mapping and Modeling Subcommittee to also develop and run a benchmarking workshop to evaluate the numerical tsunami modeling of currents. As a result of this 2-day workshop, it is anticipated that modelers will 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.
For this workshop, five different benchmarking datasets have been organized. These datasets have been selected based on characteristics such as geometric complexity, currents that are shear/seperation 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 lesss 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.
The workshop was held in February of 2015. If you are interested in information about the workshop, please contact MMS Co-Chairs Rick Wilson and Kara Gately, or Patrick Lynett.
This workshop was held in conjunction with the NTHMP Annual Meeting on February 11-12.