Of course the big news today is the 8.8 earthquake in Chile and the Tsunami warning stemming from it. There’s not much I could add that’s not already being covered, but I thought this image from the American West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center was interesting. They posted this map with estimated arrival times of tsunami waves generated by the 8.8 earthquake earthquake off the coast of Chile:
Even more interesting is the map they published of the path of energy distribution in the waves. It looks like Hawaii will dodge the worst of it:
The image above depicts wave height in centimeters.
I’m not posting direct links to these images at the center since I don’t want their server to be overwhelmed, so I’ve stored them locally.
It looks like the Aleutian islands may get some significant portion of this as will New Zealand.
The Tsunami Warning Center has a very detailed list of estimated arrival times for waves generated by Saturday’s 8.8 magnitude earthquake at many locations along the west coast of the United States. On the US West coast, the first waves to arrive will be in San Diego just after noon PST.
BONUS:
Quite possibly the stupidest science headline ever, from MSNBC and LiveScience:
Big quake question: Is nature out of control?
and
Chile Earthquake: Is Mother Nature Out of Control?
Newsflash: Nature has never been within our control.
This article at Livescience which MSNBC picked up was written by Jeanna Bryner,
who has also written articles on “The Perils of Text Messaging While Walking” and “Wanted: The Equation of Love”
Her apparent justification for the current headline:
“One scientist, however, says that relative to a time period in the past, the Earth has been more active over the past 15 years or so.”
Since the introduction of the Internet and proliferation of live global satellite news coverage, also in the past 15-20 years, we certainly do hear more about what goes on around the planet, often within minutes of occurrence. Does that mean the planet is getting more active? Not neccessarily, but you can draw the conclusion that are reporting system has improved dramatically during that period.
I think Leif mentioned further up on this thread that the energy from the recent solar activity hasn’t arrived at the earth yet.
I remember reading a geologist saying not too long ago(forgive the lack of references, I’ve been shoveling global warming from the driveway all day) that the averages given for plate movements may seem very small but on occasion those movements will jump. Like instead of a millimeter per month there will be a shift of a few inches all at once and then nothing else for several more months. That’s how you get the average low measurement for plate movement. So maybe all of this massive movement in Chile is all they’ll see for several months or years.
I have to say, it is disappointing to see the in-accuracy at which their “models” predicted the magnitude of the tsunami that hit Hawaii. They were off, way off. This does nothing to bolster my confidence in climate model results. I simply do not understand how one could suggest climate models to be accurate when it is obvious that a simple fluid dynamic model, modeling a real-time observable event, can’t even come close. Astounding to me.
sam bailey (17:35:29) :
I don’t see how a direct link can work. That would not rule out an indirect one, say the center of solar mass having links to both through solar gravity variation (earthquakes) and solar magnetic fields (solar cycles).
While I am unaware of any correlation of solar cycles and earthquake activity, that would not necessarily mean that none could exist. Still, we are a long way from the sun.
Given that NOAA tends to treat every severe thunderstorm warning, every hurricane warning, and every fire danger warning the same….perhaps the real weakness here….is the lack of research and funding for the real danger of tsunamis.
No two tsunami warnings are the same!
Most likely, the amount of water column displacement from this earthquake is many times less, than the 1960 event.
It is certainly different from the 1000 mile 40 foot rupture off of Indonesia in 2004 that caused an unimaginable displacement.
People should not let their guard down just because the Pacific basin generally dodged the bullet this time.
No two tsunamis are alike.
With all the royal BS and foolhardy crap of CO2 research glut….seems to me there are more important areas of scientific research.
Also…besides tsunami research….more earthquake research is needed.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
MattN (17:08:03) : ”Google ‘Chile earthquake global warming’ and tell me how many hits you get. It’s already being put out there on numerous messge boards. Topix has a flippin’ *POLL* on whether or not it was cause by global warming. I’m not kidding…”
A lot of the hits turn out to be comments or posts saying something like: “How long will it take for climate-nutters to blame earthquakes on Global Warming. …” You’ve got a self-fulfilling prophecy there, Matt.
It seems to me there are two aspects that should be properly researched and modelled:
a) propagation of tsunami’s across the oceans
b) local geographic effects
In combination with dispersed tidal gauges that should allow proper forecasts and warnings to be given rather than just “run for the hills” every time with the inevitable consequence that people eventually ignore them after enough false alarms.
It was a “rotten” tsunami.
Clear proof the quake and the wave were caused by AGW.
Jokes aside, condolences to Chile.
That is a long and shaky strip of crust you live on.
We get quakes too, and some are “overdue”.
Flipping cars like flapjacks “does not register” in my brain.
I pray that earthly violence remains very infrequent.
Tranquility to your spirits.
As any good barmaid knows the shape of the container, amount of fluid in the glass, and the type of “Bump” she receives will determine whether patrons get splashed.
The speed and direction of the disrupting impulse, plus how it fits the contour of the area from where the unexpected movement is centered, as well as the response of the local area to the stimulation, all go to shape the resultant wave, and it’s direction of focused travel.
whether you get a splash, a slap, or a wink, has not much to do with solar activity, but whether she likes your grasp of the situation.
*Old man’s attempt at humor*
Can’t control Nature? Nonsense – didn’t a bunch of empty suits from G8 gather recently to prove they could make the Earth’s temperature rise and fall at the whim of their tax levies and the fervor of their devotion of solar panels?
Diffraction of the solitary waves isn’t evident from the energy distribution and at this energy, I think it would almost certainly have to be noticed
I saw that “Is Nature Out of Control” as well – unbelieveable!!! (I think it does deserve some kind of award; how about the “Flying Finger of Fate”?)
philincalifornia (17:32:51) :
I guess all those people who at the time thought it was socialism (you might like The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek. It is a rather famous economics text) were mistaken.
Evidently history is faring no better than the temperature records of the past. Both are being manipulated to reach a predetermined conclusion.
He who controls the past controls the future. And who controls the present controls the past. – George Orwell – which was not his real name.
Historical note: Orwell was the name of a small river in East Anglia. Amazing what keeps coming out of that place. Or perhaps George already had a template to work with.
Geraldo Rivera on Fox, discussing the Chilean earthquake with other newsmen, nervously threw out the question “is there any possibility this event was caused by human activity?” (as if he really wanted to say “man-made global warming?) He looked pleadingly to the other newsmen on camera, who gave him no support.
Hasn’t Geraldo ever heard of the theory of plate tectonics? What is his understanding of what causes earthquakes to occur?
IIRC, the Indonesian earthquake involved one plate uplifting, which created a huge wave. If the movement is mostly side-to-side, as apparently is the case in Chile, the wave is smaller.
So where’s IPCC pimp Al Gore and his cheesecake pals Laurie David and Sheryl Crow to issue a tirade about “atmosphere as sewer”?
Kevin Kilty (16:45:29):
In the U.S. only Southern Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest Coast are capable of producing equally energetic earthquakes. The Pacific Coast south of Cape Mendicino probably cannot muster anything approaching 8.0, and the intermountain seismic zone or area around new Madrid, Missouri probably cannot exceed 7.1.
You only hope. I wouldn’t bet MY house on any of this. No one has yet been able to accurately predict when and how bad any of these earthquakes would be.
Not much progress has yet been made in the science of exactly when, how big or destructive earthquakes and volcanoes will be. Not enough information or understanding currently about how this fractured pile of rubble we live on moves about, so predictions are poor. As in weather/climate science, much work still needs to be done to prevent future injuries and deaths.
However, progress has been made on reducing the effects of these demonstration of nature’s power, with better communication of information and improved building design in area where these sort of disasters are inevitable on a long-term basis.
Am I alone in getting rather annoyed by these ‘Tsunami’ alerts? A devastating Tsunami is actually fairly rare and not necessarily caused by deep underground earthquakes – even when close to shorelines. I find it alarmist, and it smacks of the silliness talked about possible future global warming. This article doesn’t fit comfortably within a blog about the nonsense of warming.
quick question.. i dont know much about co2/methane in the waters.
But could this event in chile, have an effect in releasing c02 from the water or methane. since there is an agitation and a possible low level heat exchange betwen the upper and lower level waters. Could this cause increases or decreases. Sorry if someone mentioned this before.
“The ghost of Big Jim Cooley (01:15:20) :
Am I alone in getting rather annoyed by these ‘Tsunami’ alerts? ”
Could well be. People living on the shore might rather appreciate them.
“M. Simon (16:32:14) :
I know I’m headed off into the grass here but since it was brought up above, can some one explain how socialism is a right wing doctrine? OK. How about if I call it National Socialism. Or as I prefer – right wing compared to what? ”
You might be interested in this:
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=1961
Being involved in disaster response as planner and first responder, and watching this unfold in Hawaii all afternoon yesterday, I can only say the Hawaiians handled this extremely professionally. The lessons of Hilo in 1960 were well learned, as well as the recent experiences in American Samoa.
There was sufficient anecdotal evidence (and I suspect pressure data from the deep sea gauges) arriving throughout the morning (local time there) for the PTC to maintain their position that wave heights coming ashore could still be as high as 3 meters. It would be naive to think that they wouldn’t proceed on the worst case scenario.
You don’t have the luxury of hindsight in an impending natural disaster – you go with what you can cope with, regardless of whether or not nature unfolds as you think it will. Hawaii wasn’t preparing for a 20 foot wall of water – it had no reason to expect one, but it was peparing for the possibility (not necessarily the likelihood) that they might get a 6-10 foot surge. That would have been enough to possibly cripple key infrastructure. If it doesn’t materialize, no fair, no foul – everybody goes home and is grateful the rest of their weekend (or life) wasn’t truly ruined.
Quite correctly, they were focusing on getting people out of harm’s way, focusing on preserving their emergency response capability (and a key way to do that is to get people out of the way so that you’re not wasting scant resources rescuing idiots), focusing on the likely possibility of infrastructure damage to even small flooding. This was evident in the expressed advice for people to prepare for outages of power and water especially, and the state’s very real concern over its waste-water management. The state, correctly, wasn’t preparing for a tsunami, they were preparing for a flood.
Even the local media can be credited with behaving professionally in this, with great coverage – not only showing people what was happening in the potential disaster area, but explaining over and over why certain preparations were being made, and why people should heed the warnings.
Hawaii had the benefit of a decent advance warning, but even with this, they also knew exactly what they had to do once they knew they had to act. Most of their reaction wasn’t about high tech solutions, it simply was about the implementation of well crafted plans. Kudos to the state and municipal governments – many mainland regions could benefit from studying their methodologies.
And I see by the link to your name that you’ve diversified from Nigerian alluvial gold. Smart move.
DirkH. Ever hear the story of the boy who cried ‘Wolf!’?
“A lot of the hits turn out to be comments or posts saying something like: “How long will it take for climate-nutters to blame earthquakes on Global Warming. …” You’ve got a self-fulfilling prophecy there, Matt.”
I’m as pleased as anyone that the mainstream media hasn’t tried to link teh 2 yet. But the nutjobs on the outter fringes sure have.
Topix: http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TONELQN359BU27T3I
Alan Colmes: http://www.alan.com/2010/02/27/lmgts-an-earthquake-a-tsunami-but-no-climate-change/
We cannot predict when, but we can predict what the maximum credible event is based on the type of tectonic region. Southern Alaska and the Pacific Northwest Coast have subduction zones offshore similar to that offshore Chile.