According to the University of Hawaii at Manoa, future warnings of deadly and disruptive tsunamis may come from commercial vessels, especially those with newer tracking and navigation systems.
The discovery came from the university's research vessel, Kilo Moana
, which found that ship GPS can be used to determine sea surface height changes.
On its way from Hawaii from Guam, the ship was traveling when a tsunami was generated by the 8.8 earthquake in Chile back in February 2010. The ship’s GPS system was continually recording data, and its information relating to the height of the sea surface during the event mirrored data around the tsunami predictions from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
Uiversity of Hawaii's James Foster and other staff are currently seeking to develop a network of commercial ships that will be fitted with geodetic GPS systems to serve as a tsunami warning system in the Pacific.
There’s also the possibility that these functions will be incorporated into more general GPS systems and data – which would have ship identification removed – could be monitored by various organizations and disaster centers around the world.
Ship GPS units can measure and transmit height differences, even those unnoticed by the crew, and can relay this information in relation to a length of time. That area is key as ocean swells last roughly 15 to 20 seconds while swells associated with tsunamis can take as much as 30 minutes to pass, the university said.
The University of Hawaii said the biggest barrier to a system that can help predict these tsunamis will be getting commercial shipping lines to join and develop a mobile detection system. It hopes to launch a demonstration of the system with at least two ships by the end of 2012. - Geoff Whiting