Meteotsunamis at global scale: problems of event identification, parameterization and cataloguing

Abstract

Meteorological tsunamis (meteotsunamis) are defined as anomalous long-period (2 to 120 min) sea-level oscillations resulting from atmospheric forcing. In the current version of the Global Historical Tsunami Database covering almost 4000 years and including about 2500 tsunamis and tsunami-like events, meteotsunamis constitute a very small fraction of all events (4.1%). In the twenty-first century, when digital instruments for sea-level recording became widely available, identified meteotsunamis still only constitute 5.8% of all catalogued tsunami events. At the same time, there are many regions (Great Lakes, northeastern Gulf of Mexico, US East coast, southern Britain, Balearic Islands, Adriatic Sea, Yellow Sea, south-west coast of Japan, south-east coast of Brazil), where meteotsunamis dominate over all the other types of tsunamigenic events. Cataloguing of meteotsunami events, as reported in mass media, and described in scientific publications, faces the problems of their correct parameterization within the adopted format of the tsunami database. This format was developed in the late 1980s primarily for parameterization of seismogenic tsunamis, which at that time constituted more than 90% of the database's content. As a result, most of the meteotsunamis included in the database lack some basic parameters, such as time of origin, location of source as well as run-up heights. The present paper addresses these issues and discusses the ways for their possible resolution. Several well-known cases of recent meteotsunamis are considered from the standpoint of their parameterization and hazard assessment.

Towards the new Thematic Core Service Tsunami within the EPOS Research Infrastructure

“…It encompasses quality-checked records of non-seismic sea-level oscillations at tsunami timescales, that is with periods below 2 h, obtained from 331 worldwide tide-gauge sites. To account for historical events, EPOS will make accessible information from the global scale meteotsunami catalogues that have been recently compiled [e.g., Gusiakov et al, 2021], suggesting 235 events as confirmed or suspected meteotsunamis.…”

Special issue on the global perspective on meteotsunami science: editorial

“…The initial paper by Gusiakov (2021) assesses the problems associated with identification and cataloguing of meteotsunami events, in particular of their correct parameterization within the adopted format of the tsunami databases. Therefore, most of the meteotsunamis included in the existing databases lack some basic parameters, such as the origin time, source location and run-up heights.…”

Coastal sea level monitoring in the Mediterranean and Black seas

“…Meteorological tsunamis (also referred to as meteotsunamis) are atmospherically generated long ocean waves that have spectral properties similar to those of tsunami waves and which occasionally -at certain locations -reach the destructive heights of tsunami waves (Monserrat et al, 2006;Rabinovich, 2020;Gusiakov, 2021). The Mediterranean Sea is considered to be a meteotsunami hot spot, i.e.…”