Tsunami debris island? No, but 'tis the debris season

Tsunami debris island? NOAA says there is no debris island the size of Texas. But it says North America can expect more tsunami debris washing ashore in the fall and winter.

Debris from the deadly tsunami that struck Japan in 2011 is drifting across the Pacific Ocean toward North America, and will likely continue to wash onto North American shores over the next few years, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

"A significant amount of debris has already arrived on U.S. and Canadian shores, and it will likely continue arriving in the same scattered way over the next several years," NOAA officials said in a statement. "As we get further into the fall and winter storm season, NOAA and partners are expecting to see more debris coming ashore in North America, including tsunami debris mixed in with the 'normal' marine debris that we see every year."

On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off the east coast of Japan, triggering a devastating tsunami that killed more than 15,000 people and caused widespread destruction.

An estimated 5 million tons of debris — everything from boats to kitchen appliances — was swept into the Pacific Ocean by the tsunami. Roughly 70 percent of this detritus likely sank near the coast of Japan, but the rest (some 1.5 million tons) is scattered in the water, and has been drifting toward North America. [Tracking Tsunami Debris (Infographic)]

Recent reports suggested an island of debris the size of Texas was floating toward North America, but NOAA officials were quick to set the record straight.

"At this point, nearly three years after the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, whatever debris remains floating is very spread out," NOAA officials said. "It is spread out so much that you could fly a plane over the Pacific Ocean and not see any debris, since it is spread over a huge area, and most of the debris is small, hard-to-see objects."

NOAA has been tracking the debris since 2011, and the agency recently updated its models to include the effects of wind on the debris, which vary depending on the material and how much of the object's surface is above water.

But there are still many unknowns surrounding where all that stuff will end up, and when pieces of debris may arrive on American shores.

"This new modeling effort gives us a better understanding of where the debris may have traveled to date, but it does not predict where it will go in the future or how fast it will drift," NOAA officials wrote in an update. "The new model takes into account that wind may move items at different speeds based on how high or low materials sit in the water."

Earlier this year, a small Japanese skiff washed ashore near Crescent City, Calif. Nearly 30 other pieces of debris — including fishing buoys, a soccer ball, other small boats and even two floating docks — have washed up in Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska and British Columbia.

The docks that were swept ashore in Washington and Oregon contained massive amounts of marine life, which required decontamination in order to prevent non-native invasive species from gaining a foothold along the U.S. coast.

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Tsunami debris island? No, but 'tis the debris season
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/1107/Tsunami-debris-island-No-but-tis-the-debris-season
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe