Comments on: Tsunami Warning CANCELLED

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:11 +0000

Mark: Actually, you’ve got it backwards. The wave passing across thousands of miles of deep ocean is not slowed down or diminished by much. It is also not a tall upright wave that you imagine. The wave is shallow and long. Then, when it gets into shallow water it deepens and shortens, standing up more. The big arching wave crashing down on the shore thing, if it happens at all, happens at the shore. And there, of course, its energy is dissipating.

Scientists have this figured out. They pretty much know what they are talking about.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:47:41 +0000

Realistic that Tsunami’s could cross thousands of miles and oceans that are thousands of metres deep?

NZ Oceanographers seem to thing that our biggest threat for Tsunami’s comes from Chile.

To me this just seems ridiculous, and that there is no conceivable way that a wall of water could travel 8000 km across 8 km deep oceans, surely it would dissapate its energies in this great mass of ocean well before it got even half way.

By: JeanMarie Williams

JeanMarie Williams — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:05:30 +0000

Yes its always confusing when we get a Warning then a cancellation a few minutes later
But thanks to those who maintain watch to let us know, in the Atolls, what really is going on.
Even the Atoll of Takapoto in French Polynesia got swamped yesterday morning

Thank you

By: Vince Whirlwind

Vince Whirlwind — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:30:35 +0000

When I last looked at the Vanuatu tidal gauges over an hour ago, the strongest affected of them had recorded no more than a 10cm surge.

A bit worried that the warning goes out before they’ve figured out whether any water has been displaced – we could end up in a “crying wolf” scenario which renders the whole tsunami-warning system ineffective.

By: Tom Krawford

Tom Krawford — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:06:35 +0000

Sounds a lot like some kind of self sufficient international disaster preparedness effort. It could be a good idea, especially if the global climate continues to become more and more erratic in the coming years.

Here’s hoping Copenhagen wasn’t a waste of time and more and more nations, including ours, officially gets on the same page before it ceases to matter.

Tom K.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:06:04 +0000

Yup, now BBC is also saying it is canceled.

By: cfeagans

cfeagans — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:00:04 +0000

Here’s the Twitter trend link though: http://twitter.com/#search?q=Tsunami

It’s amazing if you think about it: just 10 years ago, this would have *possibly* carried on same-day news; 20 years ago, we would have been lucky to hear about it the second day.

But with Twitter, people are communicating at light speed and ideas or information can be spread in real time.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:59:23 +0000

So what we have here is a big earthquake, a bunch of tsunami warnings (well, from two sources, PTWC and NOAA) and now the only actual piece of new information is a tweet saying it’s OK to go back to lower ground …

I recommend getting verification first!

By: cfeagans

cfeagans — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:56:55 +0000

Likewise the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. I saw a tweet that said they canceled the tsunami warning for all of the Pacific but the site appears flooded.

I was going to post the link here, but I think I’d rather not in the event that it affects those that need the information from getting it.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:53:04 +0000

Add this: It is more than a little annoing that the International Tsunami Information Centre of UNESCO site can’t handle the current traffice and provides absolutely no useful information, but it does pop up advertisements if you click on it. Does the UN really sell adds on this site, or has the site been hacked?

http://ioc3.unesco.org/itic/