Researchers Tina Dura and Robert Weiss of the College of Science’s Department of Geosciences have found that future sea-level rise would also affect the height of future tsunamis.

“In 50 to 70 years, sea level is going to be significantly higher around the world,” said Dura, an affiliate of the Fralin Life Sciences Institute’s Center for Coastal Studies. “This morning’s repercussions are likely to be underestimated if a tsunami hits during that time period. I believe that coastal geologists and modelers alike should incorporate sea-level rise into future models and risk assessments because of climate change.”

Nature Communications reported their findings.

Tectonic plates are colliding with the enormous Pacific plate around the Ring of Fire, resulting in seismic and volcanic activity. When a big earthquake occurs in an area that is bounded by the Ring of Fire, a tsunami can be generated that travels thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean, affecting coastlines that are thousands of miles away.

The Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone is a 2,500-mile-long fault line formed by the collision of two tectonic plates off the coast of Alaska. Tsunamis generated by the subduction zone can impact the west coast of the United States, particularly Southern California, according to new research.

Science Application for Risk Reduction (SAR) project was launched by the US Geological Survey in 2013 to investigate the potential effects of an Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone tsunami on California.

For Los Angeles and Long Beach, the research concluded that the magnitude 9.1 quake may produce an enormous distant source tsunami with a 3.2-foot peak amplitude that could cause losses of up to $4.2 billion.

Tsunami predictions at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports will be inaccurate owing to rising sea levels.

Global temperatures are rising, and sea levels are rising as a result, according to observations. It is not a matter of if, but when it comes to how much the water level will rise.

They collaborated with other researchers from universities in the United States and around the world to combine distant-source tsunami modeling with future sea-level rise forecasts in order to see how increasing sea levels will affect the height of Southern California’s future tsunamis.

Los Angeles and Long Beach are expected to see a sea level rise due to scenarios that take into account both low and high estimates of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change mitigation efforts.

One of the scenarios featured initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that resulted in little temperature and sea-level increase. An alternative scenario depicts a future in which climate change will be accelerated and sea levels would rise quicker due to a lack of mitigation efforts and excessive emissions from human activity.

In the present day, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake can cause a 3.2-foot tsunami at the ports. A magnitude 8 earthquake, on the other hand, will be able to generate a tsunami with a height of almost 3.2 feet by 2100 under high-emissions sea-level rise forecasts.

In other words, as sea levels rise, the ports will be more vulnerable to tsunamis caused by weaker earthquakes than previously thought. A increased frequency of magnitude 8 earthquakes makes the results much more worrying.

Dura described a 9.1 as “A 9.1 is very, very rare,” “As a result, today, the likelihood of a 3.2-foot tsunami reaching the ports is low because a rare, massive earthquake is necessary. However, when sea levels rise, a magnitude 8 earthquake, which occurs frequently along the Pacific Rim, will be able to produce a tsunami that is larger than today’s.”

According to co-author Andra Garner, an assistant professor at Rowan University who studies sea-level rise, “This work really illustrates the potential for future tsunamis to become far more destructive as sea levels rise, especially if we fail to reduce future greenhouse gas emissions,” If we act to reduce future warming and the rise in sea levels, the study shows that we can mitigate future risks.

The only way to be prepared for the possibility of a tsunami is to look both forward and backward.

In the Science Application for Risk Reduction project of the United States Geological Survey, only one earthquake that occurred in the Semidi sector of the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone was studied. Dura and colleagues have since released research suggesting that additional areas of the subduction zone should be taken into account as well. Dura and colleagues.

This subduction zone has caused a number of past earthquakes, particularly in the Semidi and Kodiak sections. The Semidi area was devastated in 1938 by an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.3. Kodiak and neighboring areas of the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone were slammed by a magnitude 9.2 earthquake in 1964, which was the largest earthquake ever recorded on the region.

Seismic hazard maps identified the area between 1938 and 1964 as a “persistent earthquake boundary.” since the two earthquakes did not overlap. In other words, there was a low expectation of large, multi-section earthquakes in the region.

“Although the rupture zone of the earthquake of 1964 did not cross into that of the earthquake of 1938, it is uncertain if this was the case for earthquakes hundreds to thousands of years ago.. back.. back.. If the boundary between earthquakes here is not permanent, is it possible that the region could be subject to massive, multi-section quakes? We were curious to learn more, “says the Dura

Dura and colleagues collected core samples from wetlands scattered over the predicted earthquake boundary using 5 centimeter cookie-cutter-like cylinders to learn more about the seismic history of the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone.

After that, the researchers examined the soil layers in the cores to look for evidence of land-level shifts and tsunami inundations caused by previous earthquakes. An earthquake timeline was built using radiocarbon dating, cesium dating, and lead dating.

Several major earthquakes have crossed the suggested seismic boundary, indicating that both the Semidi and Kodiak subduction zone ruptures had occurred multiple times in the past, according to their research.

‘Our geology data reveals that earthquakes can traverse the Semidi and Kodiak sections,’ Dura said. “This is why we used both single and multi-section earthquakes in our distant-source tsunami simulation for the ports. For the first time, we have included multi-section earthquakes in our simulation, which we feel will help us better comprehend the impact of future tsunamis on the ports.”

The data collected by the team will be used to improve future models of the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone by include it in danger maps for southern Alaska.

As a director of the Center for Coastal Studies, Weiss stresses the need of collaborations like his that strive to integrate coastal geology, earthquake modeling, and future sea-level estimates into a holistic picture. “Understanding the effects of a changing Earth on human well-being and prosperity will be made possible by increased interdisciplinary research capacity, which means integrating scientific domains under different governing paradigms. To facilitate the formation of multidisciplinary research teams, the Center for Coastal Studies at Virginia Tech plays a critical role. Our research would not be possible without this team-building role, which helps Virginia Tech maintain its motto Ut Prosim (That I May Serve).”

Other subduction zones along the Ring of Fire will be included in future work by Dura, Weiss, and collaborators to estimate tsunami impacts on other coasts and the economic ramifications of coastal inundation.

This study provides an important framework for adding sea level rise into distant-source tsunami modeling, and we are eager to improve on these initial results,” Dura said.