Regional Training: Pacific Island Countries (ITP-PIC-2) ICG/PTWS Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) New Enhanced Tsunami Products
Tanoa International Hotel, Nadi, Fiji
22-24 May 2014
The 3-day training will cover the explanation and use of the PTWC New Enhanced Tsunami Forecast Products by National Tsunami Warning Centers and Emergency Response Agencies. Topics will cover the end-to-end warning process, warning center and emergency response operational challenges, advanced topics in tsunami warning center operations, and the methodologies, use, interpretation, and limitations of the PTWC Enhanced Products. Over the last 10+ years, with improvements in data quality, quantity, and real-time availability, PTWC’s response time has dropped significantly from an hour to 5-10 minutes for tsunami events. At the same time, with each great earthquake and tsunami since 26 December 2004 helping to increase scientific understanding, better techniques have been developed to quickly characterize the earthquake and numerically model the tsunami. This in turn has led to significant improvements in a warning center’s ability to accurately forecast coastal wave height and impact, and an ability to provide timely advice to support local tsunami warning decision-making. At the ICG/PTWS-XXV (September 2013), Member States approved the start of the PTWC Enhanced Products on October 1, 2014. These products, the first large-scale modifications in decades, fundamentally change the way in which countries assess their national tsunami threats. The PTWC will cease providing Warnings and Watches, and instead issue advisory tsunami wave forecasts. Public text products will continue to be issued, but the additional graphical and statistical products will only be sent to authorized PTWS Tsunami Warning Focal Points (TWFP).
Informational Documents
Document Title | Format/Type |
Agenda | PDF (123 KB) |
CL 2518 | PDF (1.50 MB) |