West Coast/Alaska Tsunami
Warning Center
Operations Manual
NOAA/NWS/WCATWC
Palmer,
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov
Section
4.3: EarthVu Geographic Display
Last Updated:
10/2011
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EarthVu is
displayed on the upper four monitors
EarthVu is
geographic display software developed at the WC/ATWC. Its main functions are to:
·
Display epicenters on various
scale maps,
·
Overlay pertinent information
such as historic tsunamis and earthquakes, volcanoes, elevation contours,
roads, pipelines, tsunami watch/warning areas, etc.,
·
Provide a graphical platform for
computing tsunami models,
·
Display results of previously
computed models for calibration during tsunami warnings,
·
Compute and display tsunami
travel times,
·
Interface with earthquake and
tsunami data bases, and
·
Create maps to link to tsunami
messages issued by the center.
EarthVu runs in parallel with the
EarlyBird seismic processing system and normally uses
four monitors. EarthVu is sent automatic
and interactively computed earthquake locations.
As these locations are acquired, appropriate
maps are shown on the monitors.
EarthVu can
be run in one of five modes:
1) Display large-scale maps and
overlays,
2) Interface for tsunami travel time maps,
3) Display small scale maps,
4) Display regional maps which show
the last seven days events, and
5) Display all seismometers with
active P-picks and alarms showing up on the screen.
Overlays
Several overlays are available in EarthVu.
·
Major Cities
·
Tsunamis
- all known Pacific basin tsunamis, from NOAA/NGDC
·
Earthquakes
- all known quakes magnitude > 5, 1900-present, from USGS/NEIC
·
Volcanoes
- from Global Volcanism Program
·
Seismometers
- seismometer data processed at WC/ATWC
·
Tide Gages
- tide gage sites recorded at WC/ATWC
·
Watch/Warning
Areas - present tsunami watch/warning status
·
Lat/Lon Grids
- meridians and parallels at specifiable intervals
·
Cities -
from DOD Digital Chart of the World
·
Contours
- from DOD Digital Chart of the World
·
Geographic
Names - from DOD Digital Chart of the World
·
Airports, roads,
pipelines, power lines, trails, railroads - from DOD Digital Chart of the
World
Other interactive options
available in EarthVu are: display detailed data on a tsunami,
volcano, tide gage, or seismometer with a mouse click, re-draw map with color
coded elevations/bathymetries, turn on/off voice option (says location as
displayed), call historic data bases, and specify an area of the map to expand
in the small scale map program.
Historic tsunami and earthquake data are queried with
program HISTORY which is called from EARTHVU. HISTORY retrieves information
from the data bases by date, location, and magnitude. The output can be in
summary form or in great detail, and is written to the screen and/or printer.
The earthquake data base is from the USGS/National Earthquake Information
Center. It contains all earthquakes between 1900 and present over magnitude 5
(over 70,000 quakes). The tsunami data base is the NOAA/National Geophysical
Data Center studies (e.g. Lander et al., 1993; Lander, 1996). It contains over 2000
tsunamis. The same information accessed by program HISTORY is also used by
EARTHVU and the other programs when displaying tsunamis and earthquake data on
maps.
Tsunami
Travel Times and Models
Tsunami travel time and tsunami model computations
can also be performed and displayed through the EarthVu interface. Tsunami
travel time results are displayed on an EarthVu map. The tsunami model
computation technique is described in Kowalik and Whitmore (1990). EarthVu acts as a graphic interface where model areas are specified and results
are displayed. EarthVu also displays pre-computed model results and provides a method to scale the results
based on recorded tsunamis during a warning.
This technique is discussed further in Section 4.3.1.
References
Kowalik, Z. and P.M. Whitmore (1991). An
investigation of two tsunamis recorded at
Lander, J.F. (1996). Tsunamis Affecting
Lander, J.F., P.A. Lockridge, and M.J. Kozuch
(1993). Tsunamis Affecting the West Coast of the United States 1806-1992,
NGDC Key to Geophysical Record Documentation No. 29, NOAA, NESDIS, NGDC, 242
pp.