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Funding will support NOAA's efforts to increase tsunami detection capacity for improved tsunami warnings
[Last week]the Department of Commerce and NOAA announced $30 million to upgrade and replace the equipment Deep Sea Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) Ocean Observing System as part of President Biden's Investing in America agenda. The contract, funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, was awarded to the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to develop equipment to support improved tsunami detection and warning.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is ensuring NOAA has the resources and technology needed to detect tsunamis and warn coastal communities of threats,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “Thanks to President Biden's Investing in America agenda, this $30 million investment will modernize NOAA's DART network to improve real-time tsunami forecasts and warnings to save lives and keep coastal communities safe.”
The DART system was developed to detect tsunamis and predict their impact along vulnerable coastlines. NOAA owns and operates a series of 39 DART buoys in the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean basins, including the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean basins. When a tsunami wave moves over the ocean and reaches the DART, the surface buoy – using data from a high-precision pressure sensor on the ocean floor – reports measurements of sea level information back to the National Weather Service. Tsunami Warning Centerswhere the information is used to create a tsunami forecast and refine it watches and warnings.
“Early detection and real-time reporting of tsunamis are critical to reducing loss of life in U.S. coastal communities,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “This investment to upgrade the DART network will help improve tsunami detection, warnings and the prediction of intensity and arrival times.”
SAIC will develop more modern equipment to replace the existing equipment on the DART buoys, which is 20 years old. The new systems will make the data used to detect tsunamis more available and reliable, and improve the prediction of tsunami intensity and arrival times, as well as predictions of how tsunami wave flooding would affect coastal communities.
Equipment replacement is expected to begin in 2025 and be completed in 2028.
The project is managed by NOAA's National Data Buoy Center – a division of NOAA's National Weather Service. Visit NOAAs Bipartisan infrastructure bill And Inflation Reduction Act websites to learn more about current and future financing options.
Press release from NOAA.
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