Arctic tsunamis: the newest and most dangerous threat of climate change | World

Geologists believe that climate changes can produce a Landslide of ice and stones capable of causing a tsunami in the region..

This would be just one of the “possible devastating effects” of climate change in alaska and in other arctic regions, according to researcher Anna Liljedahl, and could appear in the next few years.

The geologist tells the BBC World News, the BBC’s Spanish service, that the concern for Barry Arm is very great because it could generate a landslide much greater than anything seen in the 20th century.

“They are phenomena different from those we knew before. And the worst thing is that we believe that they will be more and more frequent, ”says the geologist, from the Woods Hole Research Center in Alaska.

He adds that the energy of a landslide like this could exceed that of a magnitude 7 earthquake.

“This is a very dangerous combination and it is just one example of the dangers we have in Alaska,” he says.

• REMEMBER: Earthquake triggered tsunami warning in Alaska on October 19

Faced with these alerts, the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Studies expressed caution and said it is permanently monitoring possible movements and landslides in the area.

The agency also says it produces models to predict how big a tsunami could be and how it would spread.

Barry Arm Strait is located in Prince William Sound Bay in the Gulf of Alaska.

It is an area with frequent presence of fishermen and that, before the pandemic, also received tourists on cruise ships.

A landslide of millions of tons could end these local economic activities indefinitely, in addition to putting hundreds of lives at risk.

Steve Masterman, director of the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Studies, recalls that the largest tsunami in history occurred in Alaska in 1958, producing a 520-meter wave.

He notes that the rocks released at the time were only one-tenth the size of a hypothetical landslide at Barry Arm.

The gradual thawing of permafrost, a layer of frozen soil that exists in regions such as Alaska, Northeast Canada, Greenland (Denmark) or Siberia (Russia), is identified as one of the main risk factors for tsunamis.

“Permafrost holds the land together and when the ice suddenly turns to water, conditions change and the soil can move,” explains Liljedahl.

The geologist points out that making a prediction is complex, since it is difficult to make a diagnosis of the behavior and conditions of this frozen layer, despite the countless computer simulations already carried out by the researchers.

“We really need to know a little bit more to determine how dangerous the landslide would be. So we think it is necessary to produce knowledge about this threat,” he says.

Liljedahl, as well as Masterman and a group of scientists, wrote a public letter in the middle of the year warning of the risk of this landslide and a tsunami.

Alaska is not the only region in danger of extinction, explains the geologist of the Woods Hole Research Center.

British Columbia, a province in northwestern Canada, and Norway also face the possibility of landslides and tsunamis due to climate change.

“As global warming continues to melt glaciers and permafrost, tsunamis produced by landslides pose a great threat,” he explains.

In the past century, 10 of the 14 largest recorded tsunamis occurred in mountainous glacial areas, such as in Lituya Bay, Alaska, in the 1958 tsunami.

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