Tsunami versus storm surge: a brief review

Abstract

Tsunamis and storm surges belong to the class of long gravity waves like ocean tides and they can cause substantial coastal inundation, leading to loss of life and extensive damage. Supercially, the coastal effects from tsunamis and storm surges are quite similar, but dynamically they are very different. Tsunamis propagate through the deep oceans and strike the coastlines, whereas storm surges are only coastal phenomena and do not exist over the deeper part of the oceans. Tsunamis can affect 1001,000 s of kilometers along the length of a coastline, whereas storm surges at most can affect few tens of kilometers along a coast.