Realtime Tsunami Prediction System Using Ocean Floor Network for Local Regions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is very interesting especially for local regions. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Please see the attachment.

I would appreciate it if improved manuscript can be accepted.

Best regards,

Narumi Takahashi

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article focuses on the early detection of the occurrence of tsunamis, which is something of great interest today.

There is no year presented in the next reference:

Makinoshima F., Oishi Y., Yamazaki T., Furumura T., and Imamura F., Early forecasting of tsunami inundation 412 from tsunami and geodetic observation data with convolutional neural networks, Nature Communications, 12, 413 2253.

Furthermore, the format of the references does not follow the journal's rules.

Considering the references that present the year, about 41% were published in the last 5 years, and only about 14% have been published more than 10 years ago, which is very positive.

In the abstract, in line 8, the word Tsunami appears duplicated, which must be an error.

There are some problems with grammatical sentence construction. For example, in line 14-17 the authors stated that “The contents of the prediction are tsunami arrival time […] but also estimated crustal activities and social communities.”, and it is not clear how “social communities” is estimated. Did the authors really intend to express this idea? In line 24, where is “missing person”, the authors probably meant to write “missing persons”, in line 143 where is “maginitude” it should be “magnitude”, in line 246 where is “processing” it should be “Processing”, and so one. For these reasons, authors should carry out a very careful review of grammatical issues related to written English.

In line 25, where is “10” it should be “10 m”.

The authors present a mere description of a tsunami detection system, without even presenting a study that illustrates their real capacity and the expected accuracy of the results, in such a way that they do not even present any conclusions. A very simple example should be presented to better illustrate the system's capabilities, which would enable the presentation of some conclusions.

I recommend the presentation of a figure with a global scheme of the implemented system, to facilitate the understanding of the developed system, that it is more than a simple presentation of a software window, like the one shown in Figure 2, namely to serve as an inspiration to other regions of the globe.

Despite these obvious flaws in the manuscript, the subject o the paper is very actual and of great interest to all countries with some type of risk of tsunami occurrence, for what it is interested in being published, but only after a major revision.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

Please see the attachment.

I would appreciate it if improved manuscript can be accepted.

Best regards,

Narumi Takahashi

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

General Comments: 

Tsunami caused by submarine earthquakes and submarine landslides is one of the major natural disasters facing coastal areas. Real-time and accurate tsunami warning and forecasting and destructive analysis are the focus of disaster prevention and mitigation. At the same time, redundant observation data is expected to improve the robustness of early warning. Due to the shortcomings of regional tsunami warnings provided by JMA, this paper uses DONET, S-net, and seismograph observation data to develop a system suitable for regional tsunami warnings. The author’s work confirms this system can provide real-time tsunami characteristic information and tsunami inundation prediction, and this system has been tested in some communities. The advantages of the regional tsunami forecasting system proposed in the article are: (1) It avoids the risk underestimation that may be caused by a single fault model. (2) The system can meet the needs of major earthquakes (such as M9). (3) User operability is strong, the system is light, the system cost is low, and the terminal requirements are not high. Generally, the paper is clearly written, the results seem trustworthy, and the idea is quite straightforward, which deserves a publication after a minor revision.

Specific issues:

• The summary part of the eighth line of the article, ‘Tsunami’ needs to be deleted.
• Where are the keywords of the article? Please add in the article.
• It is recommended to move the content in the second part of the article (2.1 Overview of the tsunami prediction system) to the introduction, briefly describe the work of the predecessors and the points that need to be improved, and focus on the work of this article.
• How reproducible is the regional tsunami monitoring system proposed in this article, and can it function in other regions? Using only the Nankai Trough as a research area seems to limit the reproducibility and versatility of the system.
• The purpose of tsunami warning is to reduce social losses as much as possible, and rapid warning and accurate warning are equally important. Can the regional monitoring system mentioned in the article quickly distinguish the destructiveness of the tsunami, thereby reducing the misjudgment of the tsunami? It is suggested that the author can compare and analyze the performance of this early warning system in identifying tsunami-type earthquakes and non-tsunami-type submarine earthquakes, so as to improve the feasibility of tsunami early warning.
• To prove the accuracy of the tsunami monitoring, it is recommended to list the test results of some cases in the article, such as the assessment of the submerged area of the tsunami.
• The problem with the illustration of the article: First, the Image resolution of Figure 2, Figure 4, Figure 6, and Figure 8 is very low, and readers cannot clearly see the information in the figure. Second, the font and size of the chart are not uniform. Also, the color of the lines used in Figure 8 is not easy to distinguish. It is recommended to modify the picture to a uniform format and use clear illustrations.
• The legend in Figure 4 overlaps with the information in the figure, covering part of the information.
• There are some problems with the layout of the pictures in the article. It is not recommended to connect different pictures together.
• The problem of the reference part: the font color is not uniform, and the format of the reference is not uniform. In addition, some documents have character shading at the bottom. It is recommended to modify the references reasonably.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

Please see the attachment.

I would appreciate it if improved manuscript can be accepted.

Best regards,

Narumi Takahashi

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors corrected errors and responded to most of my observations.

The subject in question is of undeniable scientific interest, so I recommend the publication of the article.