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Time reverse imaging for far‐field tsunami forecasting: 2011 Tohoku earthquake case study
Author(s) -
Hossen M. Jakir,
Cummins Phil R.,
Dettmer Jan,
Baba Toshitaka
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2015gl065868
Subject(s) - geology , seismology , waveform , tsunami earthquake , inversion (geology) , geodesy , near and far field , warning system , kinematics , least squares function approximation , computer science , tectonics , statistics , physics , optics , mathematics , telecommunications , classical mechanics , estimator , radar
This paper describes a new method for forecasting far‐field tsunamis by combining aspects of least squares tsunami source inversion (LSQ) with time reverse imaging (TRI). This method has the same source representation as LSQ but uses TRI to estimate initial sea surface displacement. We apply this method to the 2011 Japan tsunami, and the results show that the method produces tsunami waveforms of excellent agreement with observed waveforms at both near‐ and far‐field stations not used in the source estimation. The spatial distribution of cumulative sea surface displacement agrees well with other models obtained in more sophisticated inversions, but resolve source kinematics are not well resolved. The method has potential for application in tsunami warning systems, as it is computationally efficient and can be used to estimate the initial source model by applying precomputed Green's functions in order to provide more accurate and realistic tsunami predictions.