Hi! Dr. Robert Muir-Wood and Dr. Patricia Grossi here for our second AMA – this time we’re talking about tsunamis. We are catastrophe modelers at RMS (www.rms.com) who have spent our careers studying natural catastrophes.
This month marks the 10th anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake + Tsunami – the deadliest tsunami on record and the fourth deadliest natural disaster since 1900. It’s a good time to reflect on tsunami risk more broadly, especially the mega-tsunamis that accompany Mw9+ earthquakes. We would like to talk where else in the world could this disaster happen.
Here’s who we are:
Dr. Robert Muir-Wood is a British scientist, natural disaster expert and published author. He is the chief research officer of world-leading catastrophe modeling firm, RMS, where he works to advance natural catastrophe modeling and investigate emerging catastrophe risks. Over the last 20 years, Dr. Muir-Wood has developed catastrophe models for hurricane, earthquake, tropical cyclone, windstorm and flood, in Europe, Japan, North America, the Caribbean and Australia. Most recently, he has spent time analyzing the sequence and timing of catastrophic events, how insurance loss escalates during major catastrophes and the financial and social impact of “mega” catastrophes.
He is the author of six books, three nonfiction: “Dark Side of the Earth,” “Earthquakes and Volcanoes,” “On the Rocks: A Geology of Britain;” and three children’s books, “Atlas of the Natural World,” “Discovering Prehistory: How Old Is the Earth? How Are Fossils Formed?” and “Picture Atlas of Prehistoric Life,” as well as numerous published scientific papers and articles. He is Vice Chair of the OECD High Level Advisory Board of the International Network on the Financial Management of Large Scale Catastrophes; a member of the Climate Risk and Insurance Working Group for the Geneva Association; was on the team awarded The Nobel Peace Prize 2007, for his work with Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and was a lead author on insurance, finance and climate change for the 2007 IPCC Assessment Report. In 2012, as part of Mexico's presidency of the G20, he was involved in promoting catastrophe models to governments for managing their national disaster risks. Dr. Muir-Wood graduated with a bachelor’s degree in natural sciences from Cambridge University, England. He remained in Cambridge for his doctorate in earth sciences, where he was also a junior research fellow.
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The 2004 tsunami that struck several countries in Asia was a huge event that happened that year. If you were around back then, what do you remember about it? Did it change your country?
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake. The resulting tsunami was given various names, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, South Asian tsunami, Indonesian tsunami, the Christmas tsunami and the Boxing Day tsunami
See other Wikipedia Page of the Day posts on /r/IndiaNews
There's so much footage of the tide completely being sucked out, the waves becoming strange, but no one realizes that that means there's a tsunami coming. Everyone just stands around laughing/gaping/filming it. I feel like by the time I was 5, I knew that if you're at the beach and you see the water disappear, or sudden bizarre things happening with the water, you better run the hell away (and uphill). So it's really surprising to me that in 2004 there were countless adults who for whatever reason didn't know this. It's very sad.
PSA - If you're at the beach and the ocean disappears, GET UPHILL ASAP.
