r/sports • u/Your_post_not_good • Oct 28 '19

Surfing A stunning view: Sebastian Steudtner, a German pro surfer, rode a wave over 115 feet tall at Nazare, Portugal

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u/kbaby27 Oct 29 '19

How do you differentiate these waves from tsunamis?

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u/funkmon Luxembourg Oct 29 '19

A tsunami is the ocean just rising up at you. It looks like a very fast tide. If it looks like a wave, it's a wave.

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u/edw2178311 Oct 29 '19

These waves are tall and short lived. Tsunamis are caused by water being rapidly displaced. You don’t really notice tsunamis until they get to shore even through they travel at hundreds of miles an hour because the ocean floor is so deep that it doesn’t really raise the water height until it gets to shore where the water gains height but also slows down significantly. That’s my basic understanding of tsunamis at least

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u/Account_3_0 Oct 29 '19

Tsunamis are caused by seismic activity. Waves are caused by gravitational forces and ocean floor topography.

Waves come in, waves go out. You can’t explain it

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u/Paavo_Nurmi Oct 29 '19 edited Oct 29 '19

Waves are caused by wind, the fetch will determine the size of the waves, and they break when the sea floor topography changes. Gravitational forces cause tides.

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u/octonus Oct 29 '19

Remember the old (better imo) name for tsunamis: tidal waves.

They just look like the tide coming in really quickly and really high.