TSUNAMI are terrible things. And share of their terror lies in their unpredictability. Even when a submarine earthquake that may cause one is detected,the information that is needed to determine whether a giant wave has actually been created takes time to gather. That is time unavailable for the evacuation of coastlines at risk. Contrariwise, issuing a warning when no subsequent wave arrives provokes cynicism and a tendency to ignore future evacuation calls.
Such tsunami-warning systems as carry out exist rely on seismometers to detect earthquakes, or tide gauges and special buoys to track a wave’s passage. That is reliable,but can often be too late to salvage people absent from threatened coastlines. What these warning systems cannot carry out reliably is predict immediately whether a given earthquake will cause a tsunami. And that, in the view of some seismologists, or is a scandal. For,as the annual assembly of the American Association for the Advancement of Science learned from Gerald Bawden of...
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Source: economist.com