What is Tsunami? 3
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tsunami photos, tsunami pictures, tsunami videos, tusunami, what is tsunami
Tsunami is a Japanese word with the English translation, "harbor wave." The phenomenon we call tsunami is a series of large waves of extremely long wavelength and period usually generated by a violent, impulsive undersea disturbance or activity near the coast or in the ocean. When a sudden displacement of a large volume of water occurs, or if the sea floor is suddenly raised or dropped by an earthquake, big tsunami waves can be formed by forces of gravity. Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, explosions, and even the impact of cosmic bodies, such as meteorites, can generate tsunamis. Tsunamis can savagely attack coastlines, causing devastating property damage and loss of life.
What is Tsunami? 2
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tsunami photos, tsunami pictures, tsunami videos, tusunami, what is tsunami
The phenomenon we call "tsunami" (soo-NAH-mee) is a series of traveling ocean waves of extremely long length generated by disturbances associated primarily with earthquakes occurring below or near the ocean floor. Underwater volcanic eruptions and landslides can also generate tsunamis. In the deep ocean, their length from wave crest to wave crest may be a hundred miles or more but with a wave height of only a few feet or less. They cannot be felt aboard ships nor can they be seen from the air in the open ocean. In deep water, the waves may reach speeds exceeding 500 miles per hour.
Tsunamis are a threat to life and property to anyone living near the ocean. For example, in 1992 and 1993 over 2,000 people were killed by tsunamis occurring in Nicaragua, Indonesia and Japan. Property damage was nearly one billion dollars. The 1960 Chile Earthquake generated a Pacific-wide tsunami that caused widespread death and destruction in Chile, Hawaii, Japan and other areas in the Pacific. Large tsunamis have been known to rise over 100 feet, while tsunamis 10 to 20 feet high can be very destructive and cause many deaths and injuries.
The Tsunami Warning System (TWS) in the Pacific, comprised of 26 participating international Member States, monitors seismological and tidal stations throughout the Pacific Basin. The System evaluates potentially tsunamigenic earthquakes and disseminates tsunami warning information. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) is the operational center of the Pacific TWS. Located in Honolulu, Hawaii, PTWC provides tsunami warning information to national authorities in the Pacific Basin.
What is Tsunami? 1
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tsunami photos, tsunami pictures, tsunami videos, tusunami, what is tsunami
The term "tsunami" describes a series of long oceanic waves that is created in after a large volume of water has been displaced. “Tsunami” is derived from the Japanese language, and when transcribed to English, it means “Harbor (“tsu”) Wave (“nami”). The term was first coined by Japanese fisherman to describe the destruction caused by large waves that would wipe out entire areas surrounding the harbor. The strange thing was that they would experience little to no effects of the tsunami on their boats in their sea.
Tsunamis are waves characterized by moving at fast speeds, sometimes having a high amplitude (wave height), and long wavelength – thus tsunamis are essentially giant waves. In the deep ocean, tsunamis are barely felt since they are masked by the sheer vastness of the rest of the ocean. This is the reason why those aforementioned Japanese fishermen were not affected. However, tsunamis can be absolutely devastating as ocean’s depth decreases with approaching land.
The speed at which a tsunami travels is another impressive characteristic. Tsunamis can travel at great speeds across an ocean, usually from 500 to 1000 kilometers per hour, with hardly any energy losses and are barely noticeable out at sea. This is the reason why tsunami’s generated from one region can affect other regions thousands of kilometers away. With the recent tsunami is South Asia, the epicenter of the tsunami was just of the coast of Indonesia, and yet the tsunami struck with the same amount of force in Eastern Africa – some 14 hours after Southeast Asia was hit.
Wavelengths (the distance between wave crests) of tsunami can be in excess of 100 kilometers or more. This means that once a tsunami initially hits the coast, the second wave might not occur for up to an hour afterwards. That is part of the inherent dangers of tsunamis. With the recent tsunami in South Asia, many individuals were killed with the initial wave. However, more tragedy struck when a second tsunami claimed just as many people about an hour after the first tsunami, who had rushed back onto the beach after to help out survivors.
As a tsunami leaves the deep water of the ocean and travels into the shallower water near the coast, it behaves like a normal wave, only that it travels significantly faster and packs more power with its long wavelength. The tsunami slows down because of the shallow water, but that also makes the water “pile up” to increase the tsunami’s height. By the time it reaches land, the tsunami’s height can be horrifically imposing (some have been known to be as high as 30 meters), and their effects can be equally devastating as they batter the coast with tremendous amounts of energy. Tsunamis can strip sand from beaches, tear up trees, and even obliterate whole towns as seen with the latest South Asian tsunami disaster.
A more familiar term that is often used to describe tsunamis is “tidal wave”. This was used since the violent onrushing of tsunamis can be seen as being similar to a very large and fast tide. Oceanographers are quick to point out that tidal wave is a misleading term that is incorrect in use because tsunamis are not connected with tides in any way. Tides are the periodic movement of water produced by the gravitational pull of the sun and moon, whose entrance and exit can be accurately predicted. Tsunamis are a rare phenomenon that is caused by the displacement of massive amounts of water and manifest itself as a series of massive waves.
