NO JAVASCRIPT

This website requires JavaScript to function properly / Ce site a besoin de JavaScript pour fonctionner correctement

The 2011 Japan Tsunami

On 11th March 2011, a 9.0- magnitude earthquake off Japan's north-eastern coast generated a huge wave which, breaking on the shore, devastated everything in its path. Three altimetry satellites (Jason-1, Envisat and Jason-2) observed the front wave over the Pacific Ocean between 5 and 22 hours after the earthquake. Envisat detected the first wave front 5 hours and 25 min after the earthquake with a trough-to-crest amplitude of more to 30 cm. Jason-1 measured a larger amplitude (>60 cm), 7 hours and 30 min after the earthquake.

Top: Ground tracks Jason-1 pass #147, at 7:30 hours after the quake (left) and Envisat pass #419 at 5:25 hours after the quake (right), overlaid by a wave propagation simulation at the time of the satellite's passage.
Bottom: Model tsunami (black lines) with the satellite altimetry data along the passes, respectively, Jason-1 (left, in red) and Envisat (right, in pink). Credits T.Y Song (2012, Geoph.Research Lett.).

Further information:

Altimetry applications in videos: Tsunamis.
Image of the month: January 2012, Tsunamis debris on the Pacific
Newsletter #6, April 2011: Tsunami observation by altimetry
Nasa Earth Observatory website, animation of the wave propagation of the 2011 Japan tsunamis (2012): The Seafloor Focuses and Merges Tsunami Waves
Okal, E., A. Piatanesi, and P. Heinrich, Tsunami detection by satellite altimetry. J. Geophys. Res. 104 (B1), 1999.
Song, Y. T., I. Fukumori, C. K. Shum, and Y. Yi (2012), Merging tsunamis of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake detected over the open ocean, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L05606, doi:10.1029/2011GL050767.
A brochure about tsunamis : Tsunami, the great waves, written by the International Tsunami Information Center (ITIC).
Preparing for Tsunamis in the Mediterranean, Tsunami warning and mitigation system in the Northern Atlantic and in the Mediterranean Sea. Video (8 min) from UNESCO-IOC, in the context of NEAMTIC project.

Applications

Ocean .
Hydrology and land .
Coastal ocean applications .
Ice and Cryosphere .
Climate .
Atmosphere, wind and waves .
Geodesy and geophysics .
- Bathymetry.
- Geodesy.
- Other Geophysical applications.
- Tsunamis .
  - The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
  - The 2011 Japan Tsunami.
  - The 2022 tsunami in the Pacific Ocean (Hunga Tonga volcano eruption).
Biology .
Navigation by area .

Customizable homepage

This home page is composed of blocks called "widgets".

Rearrange the blocks with a "Click & Drop".

Hide a widget with the cross at the top right. Reset or add a widget with the "wrench" icon. The "User" and "Public" profiles offer a predefined organization.

All the modifications are automatically saved as cookies on your machine so as to enable you to have your own specific AVISO+.

Browsing menu and breadcrum trail

To ease your browsing through AVISO+, you can use at any time the main banner items with the interactive submenus or use the browsing menu on the left side of the screen (it is open by default). For more readiness of the page contents, you can fold and unfold the browsing menu by clicking on the tab. At any time you can know where you are thanks to the browsing menu or the breadcrum at the top of the page.