Island Formations Might Make Tsunamis Worse
Watch Out For Tsunami! Wikimedia Commons A computer simulation found nearby islands can amplify the severity of a tsunami by as much as 70 percent. While it seems like the more barriers between you and a ginormous wall of water, the better, new research shows the same islands that can insulate a beach against your average wind-driven wave can make the devastating effects of a tsunami way worse, according to a paper submitted to arXiv on May 31. In the aftermath of the 1992 tsunami that hit Flores, Indonesia, Costas Synolakis, one of the paper's authors and the director of USC's Tsunami Research Center, observed that some of the worst damage on the small island of Babi hit where you'd least expect it--on the lee side of the island, closest to the shore. Instead of creating a shadow zone sheltered from the destruction, as classic wave theory would suggest, the island...