A professor and doctorate candidate at the University of Rhode Island are investigating possible mechanisms that lead to disasters such as the volcanic eruption in Tonga, a country in Oceania near Fiji.
Stephen Grilli, a professor and the chair of ocean engineering and a professor of oceanography, and Maryam Mohommadpour, an ocean engineering doctoral candidate, are attempting to accomplish this through creating numerical models.
Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, an underwater volcano near the island nation of Tonga, erupted on Jan. 15, triggering a tsunami with waves up to 49 feet. The eruption killed at least three people, destroyed homes and created a layer of ash.
“If you calculate it, it was 80-200 times the energy of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima,” Grilli said.
He and Mohommadpour are creating models to better understand the formation of tsunamis, along with understanding past eruptions such as the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. This eruption was one of the most deadly volcanic eruptions and had similar effects to tsunamis.
“It’s very informative because you can help people to prepare themselves for something that may happen in the future, as big as what happened 200 years ago,” Mohommadpour said.
The eruption in Tonga sent a powerful shock wave in the atmosphere as it traveled around the world, Grilli said. These shock waves created tsunamis due to the immense pressure pushed onto the water.
Grilli and Mohommadpour are looking more into how shock waves create pressure on the ocean surface and its impact on the formation of tsunamis, as shock waves can travel up to hundreds of miles per hour.
Some of the waves caused by the tsunami even hit the coasts of Hawaii, California and Japan, which range from about 3,000-5,400 miles away. Many of the islands near Tonga were also severely damaged according to CNN.
Grilli also communicates with other nations working as part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). UNESCO is a group of nations, including New Zealand, Russia and Japan, that share ideas and information regarding events like the volcanic eruption.
Grilli is currently on sabbatical in France but still relays information to Mohommadpour and other researchers.
“There are no borders, no frontiers, we all work on this together and everybody volunteers their ideas and their information we have,” he said.
Mohommadpour discussed that she was looking at data from satellites and gauges that measure the change in sea level during tsunamis. She is gathering statistics from locations around the world, such as Australia and New Zealand, to simulate models and figure out how variables like shock waves and pressure impact tsunamis.
The shock waves from the Tonga volcanic eruption caused Mohommadpour to further evaluate the effects shock waves may have. She is now applying these mechanisms to models and looking at the connection between this recent eruption and the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, which is the topic of her thesis.
Other factors they are considering include climate change, specifically as a cause for rising sea levels.
“Climate change is going to create sea level rise, so anything that can create inundation, whether it’s a storm or tsunami is going to have increasingly large impacts,” Grilli said.
The rise in sea level means more weight will be put onto some faults in the ocean, causing a higher frequency of earthquakes and tsunamis, Grilli explained.
“I think it’s important that your generation is starting to be very aware [of] climate change, and I’m pretty optimistic that you’re going to make things change,” Grilli said. “It’s with education that people start realizing what’s really happening and how it’s going to affect their life.”