On the possibility of seismic recording of meteotsunamis

Abstract

We use the horizontal components of land-based seismometers in the vicinity of shorelines to apply to meteotsunamis the deconvolution algorithm introduced by Okal (Pure Appl Geophys 164: 2007) in order to recover time series of tsunami amplitudes from seismic recordings. For a selected set of seven such events recorded at 16 seismic stations, we obtain equivalent wave amplitudes and horizontal polarizations, the latter expressing the directions of particle motions at the surface of the sea. Our amplitudes are generally on the same order of magnitude as available regional records or reports, and the direction of tsunami currents is found mostly parallel to the relevant shorelines. In particular, seismic records available at three Spanish stations suggest that the unexplained waves which killed twelve people in Mostaganem, Algeria in 2007, had a meteorological origin. Our results, of an exploratory nature, suggest that seismic records could play an important role in the further understanding of the structure of meteotsunamis.

Special issue on the global perspective on meteotsunami science: editorial

“…Most of the meteotsunami events were relatively local (S = 1-2); the spatial coverage S = 3 was mainly associated with hurricanes (Okal 2021; Titov and Moore 2021) and typhoons (Heidarzadeh and Rabinovich 2021;Lin and Wu 2021) and also with intensive squall lines propagating along the coast (Sibley et al 2021;Araujo et al 2021). The chain of events on 23-27 June 2014 (S = 4) observed in many bays and harbours of the Mediterranean and Black seas (Rabinovich 2020;Vilibić et al 2021;Zemunik et al 2021;Okal 2021) was probably unique.…”

“…(2) Dayyer, Persian Gulf (Iran) on 19 March 2017 when 5 people were killed and 22 more were injured by a wave that inundated about 100 km of the gulf coastline (Kazeminezhad et al 2021). (3) West coast of South Korea when a 2-m wave on 19 March 2017 killed 4 people and produced severe damage (Okal 2021).…”

“…In some bays, the meteotsunami waves have been recorded with heights of several metres and associated currents of several knots, which may pose a particular threat to low-tidal regions, like the Mediterranean and Black seas (Vilibić et al 2021) and the Great Lakes (Bechle et al 2016), where the coastal infrastructure is not adapted to such strong sea-level oscillations. A number of catastrophic meteotsunamis have been recorded in modern times: (1) The Great Lakes, USA, in 1954, killing 7 people in Chicago (Ewing et al 1954), (2) Vela Luka, Croatia, in 1978, resulting in US$7 million in damage at that time (Vučetić et al 2009), (3) Nagasaki Bay, Japan, in 1979, killing 3 people and flooding coastal cities (Hibiya and Kajiura 1982), (4) Ciutadella in the Balearic Islands, Spain, in 1984 and2006, sinking tens of yachts and boats and causing of tens of millions of euros in damage (Jansà and Ramis 2021), (5) Daytona Beach, Florida, USA, in 1992, causing at least 75 injuries and damaging several dozen vehicles on the beach (Churchill et al 1995), (6) the catastrophic 2007 event in Mostaganem (Algeria) responsible for the death of 12 people (Okal 2021), (7) the catastrophic meteotsunamis that affected the north Persian Gulf coastline, Iran, causing the death of 5 people and injuring 22 (Salaree et al 2018;Heidarzadeh et al 2020;Kazeminezhad et al 2021), and several others. Being so destructive, the phenomenon intimidated the inhabitants to such an extent that they gave them particular local names: "abiki" and "yota" in Japan, "rissaga" or "resaca" in Spain, "šćiga" or "štiga" in Croatia, "marrubbio" or "marrobbio" in Sicily, "milghuba" in Malta, "Seebär" in Baltic countries, and more (Monserrat et al 2006;Rabinovich 2009).…”

Coastal sea level monitoring in the Mediterranean and Black seas

“…We have received input from 30 different agencies, resulting in brief network descriptions, a list of station details (Appendix), and additional questionnaire responses (Supplement). Maramai et al, 2014); tsunamigenic fault areas are depicted by white rectangles, and tsunamigenic potential is indicated by the numbers 1-4 (after Papadopoulos, 2007, andOaie et al, 2016); locations of historic meteotsunamis surpassing an amplitude of 0.5 m are marked with coloured stars (after Vilibić et al, 2010Vilibić et al, , 2016Orlić, 2015;Šepić et al, 2018;Okal, 2021). For extreme hourly sea levels and meteotsunamis, locations at which the most extreme events occurred are named; for tsunamis, the epicentres of earthquakes leading to the eight most destructive tsunamis are marked with t1-t8.…”

Meteotsunami Observed by the Deep‐Ocean Seafloor Pressure Gauge Network Off Northeastern Japan

“…The basic generation mechanism of a meteotsunami has been theoretically investigated (e.g., An et al., 2012; Greenspan, 1956; Proudman, 1929; Saito et al., 2021; Seo & Liu, 2014). Meteotsunamis have been widely recorded by coastal tide gauges, which have enhanced meteotsunami research (e.g., Fukuzawa & Hibiya, 2020; Heidarzadeh et al., 2020; Hibiya & Kajiura, 1982; Monserrat et al., 2006; Okal, 2020; Rabinovich et al., 2020; Seo & Liu, 2014; Šepić et al., 2015; Williams et al., 2019). However, meteotsunami observations in the deep ocean have been much less reported (Titov & Moore, 2021).…”