The satellite captures an impressive tsunami power triggered by an epic Russian earthquake

At the end of July, the sixth largest earthquake in recorded history hit the coasts of the Russian Kamchatka peninsula. The magnitude 8.8 Quake sparked a tsunami who sent waves across the Pacific, causing widespread warnings and certain evacuation orders.

The data published on Thursday August 14 by the NASA land observatory captures this global event in detail. The surface water and ocean (Swot) satellite (SWOT), a joint venture between NASA and the French space agency CNES (National Center for Spatial Studies), recorded the tsunami attack edge about 70 minutes after the earthquake. In the animated graph below, the darkest red spots mark the places where the wave has increased by more than 1.5 feet (0.45 meters).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXKUVUTGFU

“A 1.5 -foot high wave may not seem much, but tsunamis are waves that extend from the seabed to the surface of the ocean,” said Ben Hamlington, an oceanographer of the NASA jet laboratory in southern California, in a release from the Observatory of NASA. “What could only be a foot or two in the open ocean can become a 30 -foot wave in less deep waters on the coast.”

The earthquakes trigger tsunamis when they are large enough to move huge volumes of ocean water. Imagine the whole column of water around the disturbance suddenly lifting. The tsunami triggered by this magnitude 8.8 earthquake was actually less powerful than expected, but it has always sent waves up to 13 feet (4 meters) high down in the coastal cities of Kamchatka near the epicenter of the earthquake, according to the BBC. A person caught the massive swell on the video by walking his dog along the coastal cliffs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Other affected places, including the American West Coast, Hawaii and Japan, have experienced much smaller waves. Tsunami warnings were quickly downgraded or raised to most areas.

By collecting data on the height, form and management of Tsunami waves, SWOT helps scientists from the NOAA tsunami research center to improve their forecast model. “Satellite observations help researchers better observe the cause of a tsunami, and in this case, they also showed us that the noaa tsunami forecasts were just on money,” said Josh Willis, an oceanograph of the NASA Laboratory Jet Propulsory, in the press release.

The NOAA issues alerts on coastal communities potentially on the path of a tsunami based on the results of its forecast model, it is therefore essential that it is as precise as possible. When the Center for Tsunami Research has tested its model with the TSUNAMI data of Swot, the results were exciting, said chief scientist Vasily Titov, according to the press release. “This suggests that SWOT data could considerably improve tsunami operational forecasts.”