Simulation of Air-Burst Generated Tsunamis Using Geoclaw

Speaker: Marsha Berger, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
April 14, 2016

Presentation

Abstract

Strong blast waves from meteor airbursts can produce tsunamis, even without a direct impact. Such an event could lead to damage hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away. We present simulations for a range of conditions using the GeoClaw software package. GeoClaw is an adaptive finite volume package for geophysical flows that solves the depth-averaged shallow water equations to model flows with bathymetry. We first discuss GeoClaw, and present validation for earthquake-generated tsunamis. We then present the modifications needed to study tsunamis generated from airbursts.

Biography

Marsha Berger is a professor in the computer science and math departments at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, at New York University. Her research focuses on adaptive and Cartesian mesh methods for computational fluid dynamics. She has been a collaborator with Mike Aftosmis for 20 years, and was a member of the Cart3D team that won the NASA Software of the Year award in 2002. She received the IEEE’s Fernbach award in 2004, and is a member of the National Academy. Marsha earned her M.S and Ph.D. at Stanford University, and a B.S. in Mathematics at SUNY Binghamton.

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