Tsunamis and Diego...

[airgator]

Anyone hear if Diego got nailed the other day by the tsunamis?

 

[GCD]

I was wondering the same thing. I hope all are well.

 

[Mooseflyer]

I checked the Diego notams a couple hours ago - no mention of damage. The wife heard on Routers tonight that they "escaped" somehow.

 

[csmorris]

It's already been reported by major news networks that Diego Garcia is unaffected, but I figured I'd throw my two cents in. The sea floor east of DG slopes pretty steeply, which would prevent any tsunami coming from the east from doing much damage. A tsunami in the open ocean doesn't have much effect on anything and will pass right under ships almost unnoticed. It's only as it nears a land mass that you have a problem. Tsunamis are more like surges than waves, so as long as the water has somewhere else to go it won't hurt anything.

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

The sea floor east of DG slopes pretty steeply, which would prevent any tsunami coming from the east from doing much damage. A tsunami in the open ocean doesn't have much effect on anything and will pass right under ships almost unnoticed. It's only as it nears a land mass that you have a problem. Tsunamis are more like surges than waves, so as long as the water has somewhere else to go it won't hurt anything.

Scientifically very innacurate(other than the open-ocean ship thing), but it's nice to hear that DG was spared. If anything, the steeper the slope, the GREATER the shoaling effect (meaning steeper, more plunging waves for any given wavelength/waveheight). My guess is that the uninhabited East side of the island took the brunt of the energy and shielded the west side. Since the shelf drops so steeply on all sides, refraction (wrap-around) would be pretty much nil, thus protecting the Northern part of the west side.

 

[BMD]

There are P-3's there now doing SAR and survey missions. Dodge is no better or worse than it ever was. BMD

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

There are P-3's there now doing SAR and survey missions. Dodge is no better or worse than it ever was.

So long as Splendidville was spared...

 

[Sarka]

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_safe_122904,00.html

The key United States military base in the Indian Ocean has been unaffected by the tsunamis which have devastated parts of Asia, The Washington Post has reported.

 

[Juvat]

Scientifically very innacurate.

Hugh, you're everywhere on this website!
(bowing down): ...and you're an oceanographer too! We're not worthy!!

 

[milplt]

Originally Posted by Hugh Jorgan "Scientifically very innacurate."

Actually:

"The depth of the Chagos Trench and grade to the shores does not allow for tsunamis to build before passing the atoll. The result of the earthquake was seen as a tidal surge estimated at six feet.

Tsunami runup at the point of impact will depend on how the energy is focused, the travel path of the tsunami waves, the coastal configuration, and the offshore topography. Small islands with steep slopes usually experience little runup - wave heights there are only slightly greater than on the open ocean. This is the reason that islands with steep-sided fringing or barrier reefs are only at moderate risk from tsunamis."
from: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/diego-garcia.htm

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

"The depth of the Chagos Trench and grade to the shores does not allow for tsunamis to build before passing the atoll. The result of the earthquake was seen as a tidal surge estimated at six feet.

Tsunami runup at the point of impact will depend on how the energy is focused, the travel path of the tsunami waves, the coastal configuration, and the offshore topography. Small islands with steep slopes usually experience little runup - wave heights there are only slightly greater than on the open ocean. This is the reason that islands with steep-sided fringing or barrier reefs are only at moderate risk from tsunamis."
from: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/diego-garcia.htm

Good stuff. Back to the books.

 

[GasPasser]

It helped that DG was over 2,000 mi from the epicenter. More from CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/01/04/tsunami.diegogarcia.ap/index.html

 

[HueyPilot]

There are already rumors on the net about how the US must have known about the tsunami ahead of time if Diego got spared...

Tinfoil hats on!

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

It helped that DG was over 2,000 mi from the epicenter. More from CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/01/04/tsunami.diegogarcia.ap/index.html

The Maldives were just as far away. These waves lose little energy over distance. Thanks to milplt, I did a little more research and learned some things I didn't know regarding the shoaling differences between wind-driven and seismic sea waves. The bottom topography makes more of a difference in the runup than I would have expected. Also turns out that the path more west and less south carried more energy (people died in Africa, maybe 4000 miles away?)

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

There are already rumors on the net about how the US must have known about the tsunami ahead of time if Diego got spared...

They did know ahead of time. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center tried to call and email all kinds of people to get the word out, but there's no infrastructure in place to get that word out. They notified PACOM right away, so you can bet the folks in DG were notified (well, wait a minute....Pearl Harbor comes to mind).

 

[AA717driver]

I say it was the surface residue from Chem-trail testing the military was doing around DG that knocked down the Tsunami...

Since Area 51 has been compromised, we've had to move our Chem-trail research offshore.TC