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Tsunami Warning System

April 25, 2018

Research engineer Lee Freitag and colleagues in the WHOI Acoustic Communications Group are developing a longe-range underwater sound-singalling system to warn of possible tsunamis. When a pressure sensor detects a tsunami wave offshore, a modem sends out an underwater sound signal. Cool, deep water acts as a sound channel. Sound waves refract from the warm water layer above and bend back down toward the seafloor, where modems receive the sound signal and relay it to stations on the bottom and then to a cabled station that sends the tsunami alert to officials on shore. Freitag is also developing a system for communications under Arctic ice. (Illustration by Eric S. Taylor, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)