The world’s second-tallest tsunami wave on record tore through the remote Tracy Arm fjord in Alaska last August, leaving immense destruction in its wake.Luckily, there were no people nearby. But in its aftermath, scientists immediately went to work, piecing together what happens when a mountainside collapse kicks off a mega-tsunami and no one is around to see it.This is how it happened: On August 10, at 5:30 in the morning, an entire mountainside at the mouth of the receding South Sawyer glacier detached, falling into the ocean and producing a monster wave. At its peak, the wave raced up over 1,500 feet on the opposing wall of the fjord — a height taller than Kuala Lumpur’s twin Petronas towers.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe mega-tsunami wreaked havoc across the landscape, stripping forests down to bare rock, ripping trees out by their roots and hurling boulders.It also produced a seismic vibration so strong it shook the entire planet for days. Only the second time that an effect like this has been recorded anywhere, it was caused by trapped energy from the wave sloshing around in the fjord for days following the initial event.In the months following the tsunami, a dozen scientists from the US, Canada and Europe have been doing “detective” work, attempting to “re-create this hazards cascade,” said Daniel Shugar, a geomorphologist and professor at the University of Calgary. The group published their findings in the journal Science on Wednesday.Scientists see the fingerprints of climate change all over this event and several others like it that have occurred in recent years. Many of them have been linked to retreating glaciers, as melting ice destabilizes the mountains and land that had been covered for centuries.AdvertisementAdvertisement“As the climate is changing, as glaciers are retreating, we are likely going to see more of these kinds of events in high latitude environments in the Arctic and the sub-Arctic,” Shugar said.“I can barely believe it”Even for scientists who study these kinds of disasters, the awe-inducing destruction and power of the Tracy Arm mega-tsunami is hard for the human brain to comprehend.The mountainside that slid off to produce the skyscraper-size wave was, itself, more than 3,200 feet tall — higher than the world’s tallest building. Today, the mount …
