Simulating tsunamis in the Indian Ocean with real bathymetry by using a high-order triangular discontinuous Galerkin oceanic shallow water model

摘要

The discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method has been accepted in the last decade by the geosciences community as an important component of geophysical fluid dynamics. The high-order accuracy, geometric flexibility to use unstructured grids, local conservation, and monotonicity properties of the DG method make it a prime candidate for the construction of future ocean and shallow water models. This study focuses on formatting real bathymetry data of the Indian Ocean in order to simulate the propagation stage of the Indian Ocean tsunami that occurred on December 26, 2004, by using a DG model. In order to validate this simulation the study uses real measurements. The model results are compared to tide gauge data from several stations around the Indian Ocean, satellite altimetry, and field measurements. These results show that the model gives accurate estimates of arrival times in distant locations.