A Dozen Tsunamis from 2004 to 2014: Lessons and Revelations
Abstract
The past 10 years have witnessed two truly catastrophic tsunamis (2004 and2011), but also a dozen other ones, some significantlydamaging. Among the scientific lessons learnt from the Sumatra event, the mostimportant is the failure of the concept of maximum earthquake predictablefrom simple tectonic parameters, resulting in the precautionary suggestion thatall subduction zones may conceivably support a mega earthquake, as strikinglyillustrated by the 2011 Tohoku event. A critical analysis of tsunami warningstrategies and population response in the past decade revealsconsiderable progress in the far field (with only two or threepast-Sumatra casualties), but a relatively random record in the near field,where successes (Solomon Islands 2007; Bengkulu 2007) are overshadowed byoutright failures, notably during the 2010 Mentawai "tsunami earthquake".We review remaining challenges and progress towards their resolution, bothscientific (such as the real-time identification of "tsunami earthquakes" andthe understanding of wave sequencing in the far field), and societal (includinga post-mortem of the 2011 Fukushima disaster).The exceptional size of the 2004 Sumatra earthquake (and to someextent of following ones) has allowed the coupling of their tsunamis toboth the solid Earth and the atmosphere in non-traditional ways, offering thepossibility of detection by a remarkable variety of "incompetent" instrumentsranging from hydrophones to magnetometers and ionospheric probes. Beyondthe mere intellectual interest of these observations, they open the doorto possible applications towards a range of complementary methods of tsunamiwarning.Finally, the deep 2013 Okhotsk Sea earthquake has generated asmall but recordable tsunami, whose millimetric amplitude is correctlypredicted by a number of methodologies, suggesting that deep events maycontribute to tsunami hazard, if even larger-sized deep earthquakes couldoccur.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014AGUFM.S13E..05O
- Keywords:
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- 4313 Extreme events;
- 4332 Disaster resilience;
- 4564 Tsunamis and storm surges;
- 7240 Subduction zones