Acehtsunami

PASADENA, Calif. – A wave of new NASA research on tsunamis has yielded an innovative method to improve existing tsunami warning systems, and a potentially groundbreaking new theory on the source of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.In one study, published last fall in Geophysical Research Letters, researcher Y. Tony Song of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., demonstrated that real-time data from NASA’s network of global positioning system (GPS) stations can detect ground motions preceding tsunamis and reliably estimate a tsunami’s destructive potential within minutes, well before it reaches coastal areas.

The method could lead to development of more reliable global tsunami warning systems, saving lives and reducing false alarms.Conventional tsunami warning systems rely on estimates of an earthquake’s magnitude to determine whether a large tsunami will be generated. Earthquake magnitude is not always a reliable indicator of tsunami potential, however. The 2004 Indian Ocean quake generated a huge tsunami,while the 2005 Nias (Indonesia) quake did not, even though both had almost the same magnitude from initial estimates. Between 2005 and 2007, five false tsunami alarms were issued worldwide. Such alarms have negative societal and economic effects.