How extreme are these events?
Measuring floods
Measuring the volume of water (discharge) that flows by per second is a good way of judging the size of floods. This measure allows us to determine the depth of flowing water, the area the water covers and the power or velocity of the flowing water.
Event | Discharge |
---|---|
2010 Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland megaflood | 3,000 cubic metres per second |
2010 Pakistan floods | 47,500 cubic metres per second |
Dover straits megaflood | 1,000,000 cubic metres per second |
Measuring tsunamis
Tsunamis are typically measured by the size of the wave. In the diagram below we can see how the tsunami wave height is measured by reference to the sea level around it. The height of the tsunami results in a greater amount of water being carried to the shore, this is represented by flow depth in the diagram
Event | Wave height |
---|---|
1903 Upper Arrow Lake, Canada megatsunami | 3 metres |
2011 Tohoku, Japan tsunami | 7 metres |
Storegga Slide megatsunami | 30 metres |
Chicxulub impact megatsunami | 100 metres |
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