Impact of Tsunamis Considering Tsunami-Tide Interaction on the Southern Sea of Korea

Abstract

During propagation of a tsunami in the ocean, it experiences various coastal and oceanic processes and can be influenced or transformed by these interactions. Most of these interactions, however,can be neglected in the real world when predicting tsunamis because main forces of tsunamis are predominant over other background water motions. On the other hand, for some regions with verystrong tides for example, in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, the nonlinear tsunami-tide interaction may be strengthened significantly and then should be evaluated to predict tsunami hazards in Korea. Since propagation of tsunami waves are highly influenced by tidal elevations in a shallow water zone with dominant tidal signals, a significant effect of tsunami&#8211 tide interaction should be observed in the tidal and tsunami currents. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that increment of water depth caused by tides should be considered during the run-up process because the near-shore bathymetry played an important role for the run-up computation. Therefore, for development of a mitigation plan against tsunami hazard in the southern sea of Korea, the nonlinear tsunami-tide interaction should be evaluated during numerical simulations. In this study, numerical experiments were conducted to identify impact of the nonlinear tsunami-tide interaction during propagation over the southern sea of Korea. A series of virtual tsunamis suggestedicting tsunamis because main forces of tsunamis are predominant over other background water motions. On the other hand, for some regions with verystrong tides for example, in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, the nonlinear tsunami-tide interaction may be strengthened significantly and then should be evaluated to predict tsunami hazards in Korea. Since propagation of tsunami waves are highly influenced by tidal elevations in a shallow water zone with dominant tidal signals, a significant effect of tsunami&#8211 tide interaction should be observed in the tidal and tsunami currents. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that increment of water depth caused by tides should be considered during the run-up process because the near-shore bathymetry played an important role for the run-up computation. Therefore, for development of a mitigation plan against tsunami hazard in the southern sea of Korea, the nonlinear tsunami-tide interaction should be evaluated during numerical simulations. In this study, numerical experiments were conducted to identify impact of the nonlinear tsunami-tide interaction during propagation over the southern sea of Korea. A series of virtual tsunamis suggeste