What you've got to remember is that even the most sophisticated computer modeling is, at heart, just highly refined
guesswork! Not only do we not have actual experience with impacts, if one actually happened tomorrow, there would be
nobody on hand to observe it scientifically, take measurements of pressure waves, etc.
We guess by scaling up from observed nuclear events and scaling down from inferences drawn from the remains of great
impacts of the past.
I think you make impact modeling sound alot more guesswork than it actuall is, or may be.
What we know of the effects caused by large explosions are based upon, without any exageration, the results of literally thousands of sets of experimental data. we can predict how such impacts will scale pretty darn regularly. Sure there are variables at play such as the type of impact site (bedrock vs water for example) angle of incidence, ect, but for an event such as this, surely those in the know would take account for such variables in their attempts to predict the outcome. while such estimates are not absolute predictions, they are quite likely to be 'close enough for the women i date' as the saying goes..
rememeber, essentially everything in science is an estimation. we can only estimate the force of gravity to within the accuracy of the instruments we use, but that estimation is still enough to allow us to calculate how much it will hurt when we slip on a pach of ice and hit our head on the ground, at least to an accuracy that is good enough for the situation at hand.
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