Meteotsunami Warning Project

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NOAA's Tsunami Program's mission is to provide reliable tsunami forecasts and warnings and to promote community resilience. The Tsunami Warning System is designed to warn coastal residents of tsunamis generated by impulsive displacement of the sea floor through earthquakes and/or sub-sea landslides triggered by earthquakes. Approximately 85% of tsunamis are triggered by earthquakes. However, in some locations of the country meteorologically-generated waves with the same characteristics as tsunamis (or, "meteotsunamis") have historically posed a greater threat than the well-known earthquake-generated tsunami. Presently, no system is in place in the U.S. which monitors for the phenomena and alerts coastal residents to the threat. The NOAA Tsunami Program recognizes the need to research the possibility of developing a meteotsunami warning capability. This RFA requests research to address four primary objectives: 1) Identify the causative forces and pre-cursor environmental conditions which have generated meteotsunamis historically; 2) Define the observational systems, communications, and processing systems necessary to evaluate meteotsunami formation prior to impact along a coast; and 3) Develop a protocol for issuing meteotsunami warnings along the U.S. coas

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