Prompted by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami disaster, the research, which was led by Newcastle University’s Professor Robin Johnson, offers an alternative to the standard theory
of tsunami development, known as soliton theory.

‘What we found was that the number and height of the tsunami waves hitting the shoreline depends critically on the shape of the initial surface wave in deep water,’ Johnson said. ‘From this, it’s possible to work out whether a trough or a peak is the leading wave.’

By calculating the number of waves that join together as the faster ones catch up with the slower ones, the team was able to predict how many and how big and fast the final waves hitting the shoreline would be.

‘We have shown that it is possible to use the initial wave pattern to work out how the wave will evolve and, importantly, how it might interact with the complicated motions close inshore to produce the tsunamis that we experience,’ Johnson said.

The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami devastated coastal regions around the Indian Ocean, killing more than 225,000 people in 11 countries.

June 2009