The

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep-sea exploratio ...

Center for Tsunami Research (NCTR), located at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

, performs research in support of

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

forecast models to increase the speed and accuracy of operational forecasts and warnings,

inundation models to predict tsunami impacts on coastal communities, and tsunami measurement/detection technology for optimally designed networks of tsunami

buoy A buoy (; ) is a buoyancy, floating device that can have many purposes. It can be anchored (stationary) or allowed to drift with ocean currents. History The ultimate origin of buoys is unknown, but by 1295 a seaman's manual referred to navig ...

Tsunami measurements and forecast modeling

PMEL/NCTR developed and holds the patent on the

Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) is a component of an enhanced tsunami warning system. By logging changes in seafloor temperature and pressure, and transmitting the data via a surface buoy to a ground station by satellit ...

DART® tsunami detection buoy that forms the backbone of the global tsunami detection network. Operational support for the DART® buoys has been transitioned to NDBC. The NCTR's SIFT tsunami forecasting system is described in the NCT
YouTube video about the 2010 Chile tsunami event
and in more detail in the NCTR Power Point presentation
Developing tsunami flooding forecast software
'. The SIFT system is deployed at the two NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers. In 2004, the NCTR was awarded a Department of Commerce Gold Medal, Gold Medal''"for the creation and use of a new moored buoy system to provide accurate and timely warning information on tsunamis"''). In 2005, the NCTR received a

Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government. It is responsible for gathering data for business ...

Gold Medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...

, ''"for research and development leading to the creation of a tsunami forecasting capability"''.

The NCTR website

The NCTR website describes the project's research and scientific publications. Event pages for larger tsunami events provide modeled tsunami propagation animations, tsunami energy graphics, and model-data comparisons at sea level stations. Other sections of the website include a

FAQ and Educational resources. Also included are

animations and

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

videos.

videos
https://www.youtube.com/noaapmel#p/c/2/nZ9Du7VfdSg
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Notes and references

External links

Tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

website
http://www.tsunami.noaa.gov
* National

Hazard Mitigation Program
https://web.archive.org/web/20100726110144/http://nthmp.tsunami.gov/
*

National Tsunami Warning Center The National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) is one of two tsunami warning centers in the United States, covering all coastal regions of the United States and Canada, except Hawaii, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin ...

Pacific Tsunami Warning Center The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC), located on Ford Island, Hawaii, is one of two tsunami warning centers in the United States, covering Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific, as well as Puerto Ric ...

{{authority control Center for Tsunami Research Tsunami Research institutes in Seattle Oceanographic organizations