Commentary: The Role of Geodetic Algorithms for Earthquake Early Warning in Cascadia

Abstract The ShakeAlert earthquake early warning (EEW) system issues public alerts in California and will soon extend to Oregon and Washington. The Cascadia subduction zone presents significant new challenges and opportunities for EEW. Initial publications suggested that EEW algorithms based on Glob...

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Main Authors: Jeffrey J. McGuire, Sarah E. Minson, Jessica R. Murray, Benjamin A. Brooks
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2021-03-01
Series:Geophysical Research Letters
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL092324
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author Jeffrey J. McGuire
Sarah E. Minson
Jessica R. Murray
Benjamin A. Brooks
author_facet Jeffrey J. McGuire
Sarah E. Minson
Jessica R. Murray
Benjamin A. Brooks
author_sort Jeffrey J. McGuire
collection DOAJ
description Abstract The ShakeAlert earthquake early warning (EEW) system issues public alerts in California and will soon extend to Oregon and Washington. The Cascadia subduction zone presents significant new challenges and opportunities for EEW. Initial publications suggested that EEW algorithms based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data could provide improved warning for intraslab events and dramatically improved warning for offshore megathrust events, both of which contribute significantly to hazard in Cascadia. We find that some expectations in these publications were unrealistic, and we demonstrate that in general geodetic algorithms would not produce timely warnings for intraslab events nor warning times of two minutes or more for severe shaking from megathrust earthquakes. Nonetheless, lessons from recent earthquakes in Japan and California, for which alerts from seismic algorithms suffered from magnitude saturation and high data latencies, demonstrate the urgent need for rigorous testing of geodetic EEW as a potential complement to seismic EEW.
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spelling doaj-art-246a522b3bb74e70a3b0d13a73e6fca62025-08-20T03:11:04ZengWileyGeophysical Research Letters0094-82761944-80072021-03-01486n/an/a10.1029/2020GL092324Commentary: The Role of Geodetic Algorithms for Earthquake Early Warning in CascadiaJeffrey J. McGuire0Sarah E. Minson1Jessica R. Murray2Benjamin A. Brooks3U.S. Geological Survey Moffet Field CA USAU.S. Geological Survey Moffet Field CA USAU.S. Geological Survey Moffet Field CA USAU.S. Geological Survey Moffet Field CA USAAbstract The ShakeAlert earthquake early warning (EEW) system issues public alerts in California and will soon extend to Oregon and Washington. The Cascadia subduction zone presents significant new challenges and opportunities for EEW. Initial publications suggested that EEW algorithms based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data could provide improved warning for intraslab events and dramatically improved warning for offshore megathrust events, both of which contribute significantly to hazard in Cascadia. We find that some expectations in these publications were unrealistic, and we demonstrate that in general geodetic algorithms would not produce timely warnings for intraslab events nor warning times of two minutes or more for severe shaking from megathrust earthquakes. Nonetheless, lessons from recent earthquakes in Japan and California, for which alerts from seismic algorithms suffered from magnitude saturation and high data latencies, demonstrate the urgent need for rigorous testing of geodetic EEW as a potential complement to seismic EEW.https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL092324
spellingShingle Jeffrey J. McGuire
Sarah E. Minson
Jessica R. Murray
Benjamin A. Brooks
Commentary: The Role of Geodetic Algorithms for Earthquake Early Warning in Cascadia
Geophysical Research Letters
title Commentary: The Role of Geodetic Algorithms for Earthquake Early Warning in Cascadia
title_full Commentary: The Role of Geodetic Algorithms for Earthquake Early Warning in Cascadia
title_fullStr Commentary: The Role of Geodetic Algorithms for Earthquake Early Warning in Cascadia
title_full_unstemmed Commentary: The Role of Geodetic Algorithms for Earthquake Early Warning in Cascadia
title_short Commentary: The Role of Geodetic Algorithms for Earthquake Early Warning in Cascadia
title_sort commentary the role of geodetic algorithms for earthquake early warning in cascadia
url https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL092324
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