Solitons and tsunamis

Abstract

We discuss the relevance of soliton theory to the modeling of tsunami waves. Our analysis shows that for the two most devastating tsunamis of the last century, the 2004 Bay of Bengal and the 1960 Chile tsunami, the propagation distances were too short for soliton dynamics to apply. Thus the shallow water theory is appropriate for the modelling of tsunamis. © 2009 Verlag der Zeitschrift für Naturforschung.