What fundamental limitation made coastal tide gauges insufficient for early tsunami warnings?
Answer
They could only measure a tsunami after it had already arrived at the coastline
Coastal tide gauges operate by measuring water levels at specific shore locations. Because they measure the sea level only when the water reaches the gauge, they are effectively useless for alerting populations that are in the path of the wave but are not yet at the immediate coastline. This meant that by the time a tide gauge registered a tsunami, the opportunity to issue a warning for that specific area had already passed, failing to provide the necessary lead time for evacuation.
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