NASA “predicts” tsunamis from space with the help of Artificial Intelligence — the innovative system could save lives

Tsunamis reach the shores quietly, often with little warning.

However, a promising NASA program uses an intelligent method to detect ocean disturbances as they occur, giving areas at risk enough time to react.

The Guardian artificial intelligence system uses signals from GPS satellites affected by atmospheric disturbances to provide early warnings, according to the BBC.

Meanwhile, Europe is developing its own system to monitor regions of interest, such as the Indian Ocean, where France has territories.

The basic concept of the idea has existed since the 1970s, but it has only recently been implemented in our decade.

Nature provided the opportunity to test the new system just one day after it began operating.

A tsunami in the open ocean is a wave only 10–50 centimeters high. Very small, but because it spreads across a vast area, it moves a massive volume of water. This causes “ripples” in the air above it, which in turn affect the ionosphere, the layer of the atmosphere located 100–200 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.

The “ripples” in the air cause disturbances in the ionospheric particles, which affect GPS satellite signals. These infinitesimal delays can be recorded in real time and serve as an indicator that something is happening in the ocean.

The 2011 earthquake in Japan and the 2022 volcanic eruption in Tonga left a “fingerprint” in the ionosphere that experts say can be used to detect volcanic eruptions, large landslides, underground nuclear tests, and rocket launches.

Until now, tsunamis have been detected by buoys in the open sea that sway strongly after earthquakes.

The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula last July was the strongest recorded on the planet in 15 years.

Waves began spreading across the Pacific at speeds of up to 600 kilometers per hour.

In countries bordering the ocean, alarms were triggered and evacuation orders issued. In Japan alone, the closest country to the epicenter, at least two million people were ordered to evacuate their coastal areas.

Thanks to the new system, just 20 minutes after the Kamchatka earthquake, scientists knew that a tsunami was heading toward Hawaii, where it was expected to arrive within 30 to 40 minutes.

In the end, the waves in Hawaii reached a maximum height of 1.7 meters, causing minor flooding and limited damage. Most of the energy from the powerful earthquake was “absorbed” by the ocean and did not affect populated areas.

The system is not yet complete. In the future, it will allow not only automatic detection but also automatic forecasting of the tsunami’s future behavior by sending alerts about the final wave height, the exact point where they will hit land, and the expected time of impact.

There are still some limitations. The ionosphere “takes from a few minutes to several tens of minutes to respond” to a tsunami, a delay that could prove devastating for coastal communities.

“KORÇA BOOM”