NOAA
Exercise Pacific Wave 17
Exercise Pacific Wave 17
Exercise Pacific Wave 2017: 15-17 FEBRUARY 2017
At its 26th session, the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/PTWS-XXVI, Honolulu, United States of America, 22–24 April 2015), Member States agreed that the NWPTAC should proceed with the development of its enhanced products for the North-West Pacific, with guidance and feedback to be received from the Task Team on Enhanced Products. The new products will consist of an initial text message using information from a pre-established tsunami database, and be followed by text and graphical messages that include results from real-time simulations. The graphical products will be sent solely to Tsunami Warning Focal Points of recipient countries. Exercises Pacific Wave 2016 and 2017 (PacWave16, PacWave17) are both experimental phases being conducted to support the changeover to the NWPTAC enhanced products in 2018.
Centre Opérationnel Gouvernemental de Nouvelle-Calédonie during PacWave15. (Credit: DSCGR, New Caledonia)
Exercise Pacific Wave 2017 (PacWave17) will take place during the period 15-17 February 2017. The exercise intends to support the development of improved tsunami products and procedures, including the Enhanced Products of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) and the Northwest Pacific Tsunami Advisory Center (NWPTAC) of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). PacWave17 will include multiple scenarios to enable all Member States to select a distant or regional event that will cause the greatest impact to their country. Member States may then use the information in their decision-making to assess their national threat. It is recommended to be a table-top exercise and is not required to be conducted down to community levels. Each exercise scenario, to be available in the PacWave17 Exercise Manual, will start during the daytime with a dummy message issued by the PTWC, and as needed, by the NWPTAC.
The Steering Committee also considered the progress of South China Sea Tsunami Advisory Center (SCSTAC) Tsunami Advisory Products, and agreed to take the opportunity to include testing of the SCSTAC products with PacWave17. Exercise details were discussed and agreed by the Task Team on the Establishment of the SCSTAC (TT-SCSTAC) at its 2nd Meeting on 24-25 October 2016 in Beijing. The testing and evaluation of the SCSTAC products will be done in parallel with PacWave17, and is overseen by the TT-SCSTAC with support from ITIC.
PacWave17 Summary Report available - NEW
Exercise Documents
| Document Title |
Exercise Pacific Wave 2017 - IOC
|
| Exercise Manuals |
Overviews (combined) (PPT, 3.2 MB, PDF 2.9 MB)
|
| How to Plan, Conduct, and Evaluate Tsunami Exercises IOC Manual and Guides 58, 2013 |
| NWPTAC Enhanced Products |
|
PTWC Enhanced Products (Web Site) User’s Guide for the PTWC Enhanced Products for the PTWS (IOC TS 105 rev, Aug 2014)
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| SCSTAC Enhanced Products (For Member States of the South China Sea Region only) |
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IOC Tsunami Warning Focal Point (TWFP) and National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) Definitions (IOC Executive Council, July 2014) (PDF, 53 KB) Updating information on National Tsunami Warning Centres (NTWC) and Tsunami Warning Focal Points (TWFP) for the PTWS region according to new definitions (23 January 2015) |
| Exercise Pacific Wave 2016 - Summary |
PacWave17 Scenarios
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| PacWave17 PTWC and NWPTAC Master Schedule of Events List (incl Earthquake Scenarios) (MSEL) (DOC, 241 KB) PacWave17 SCSTAC Enhanced Products Master Schedule of Events List (MSEL) (DOC, 161 KB) |
|
PacWave17 Scenarios - Messages
For countries of the South China Sea Region only: Download ZIP files containing All Messages issued by SCSTAC for each scenario.
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PacWave17 - UNESCO News Note, 9 February 2017 |
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PacWave17 Exercise Evaluation Form (available) Please complete online by 10 March 2017, at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/pacwave17_eval PacWave17 Exercise Evaluation Form for testing of SCSTAC Enhanced Products https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/pacwave17_scs_eval |
Quick Links
Resources
Tsunami Awareness Poster
Available in English, Spanish, Chinese, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Singalese.
Global & Regional Hazard Maps
Tsunami Sources, Significant Earthquakes, Significant Volcanic Eruptions, Tsunami Icosohedron Globe.
TsunamiTeacher USA
Tsunami Basics
Also on YouTube
(w/closed captioning)
Learn the basics of tsunamis. Available in English, Samoan.