Follow-up – WAA
Climate change causes many problems on Earth. For example, the melting of polar ice caps tops the list of problems caused by climate change..
According to scientists, ocean levels have risen by 3.8 cm in the past decade alone, due to the huge amount of fresh water that flows into the oceans annually. That is, the melting of the polar ice is not the only worrying thing, but what is even more worrying is the occurrence of huge tsunamis that can raise the ocean level by 100 meters within minutes..
Tsunamis are caused by the movement of water resulting from landslides, volcanoes, earthquakes and other natural phenomena. They can reach speeds of up to 800 km/h and destroy everything in their path when they reach land. Megatsunamis can reach a height of 150 m. This is what happened in 2004 in Indonesia after an earthquake measuring 9.3 on the Richter scale, where a tsunami wave was formed with a height of 51 m. This wave caused damage in 14 neighboring countries and reached East Africa after traveling a distance of 5900 km..
Scientists point out that as the world gets warmer, polar ice melts and shrinks, and unstable layers of mud and rock appear, because the Earth’s tectonic plates are in constant motion. For example, places like Greenland experience massive tsunamis, when huge pieces of ice and rock break off and fall into the ocean. This is what happened on September 16, 2023, when a rock mass the size of a football field broke off from a height of 60 meters, carrying debris and eternal ice a distance of 300 meters and falling at a 40-degree angle into the ocean, causing a surge that reached a height of 200 meters, followed by a wave about 60 meters high and 10 km wide in the Dixon Strait east of Greenland, which lasted for a week, so that seismic monitoring devices 5,000 km away were able to determine its strength. All of this, according to scientists, is worrisome despite the existence of early warning devices and systems for the occurrence and approach of a tsunami..
Source: Agencies