| Abstract | With nearly 230,000 fatalities, the
26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
was the deadliest tsunami in history, illustrating
the importance of developing basinwide
warning systems. Key to creating these
systems is easy access to quality- controlled,
verifi ed data on past tsunamis: Warning
centers, emergency managers, and modelers
need to know if and when similar events
have occurred.
Following the 2004 tsunami, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s
(NOAA) National Geophysical Data Center
(NGDC) began examining all aspects of the
tsunami data archive to help answer questions
regarding the frequency and severity
of past tsunamis. Historical databases
span insuffi cient time to reveal a region’s
full tsunami hazard, so a global database
of citations to articles on tsunami deposits
was added to the archive. NGDC further
expanded the archive to include highresolution
tide gauge data, deep- ocean
sensor data, and digital elevation models
used for propagation and inundation. NGDC
continuously reviews data for accuracy,
making modifi cations as new information is
obtained.
These added databases allow NGDC to
provide the tsunami data necessary for hazard
assessments, mitigation efforts, and
warning guidance (these data can also be
useful to scientists in other fi elds, such as
storm surge modeling). Because some of
the databases only cover the United States,
NGDC is working with international organizations
to expand the geographic coverage
of the entire archive.
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