Encouraged by the zeitgeist let me ask the following:
Is it feasible (now or in the future) to build systems a certain distance of a vulnerable coastline which can serve to dampen a tsunami before it reaches the coast itself?
The following picture comes to mind. We have some device which is small enough to be mounted on a buoy. An array of such buoys can be anchored some distance off the coastline, controlled by computers which are linked into the global tsunami warning network. This setup is quite feasible given what a cell phone can do today.
On the detection of an oceanic earthquake or other tsunami generating event (such as a piece of the Rock of Gibraltar falling into the sea) and given present environmental conditions one can calculate the expected path of the tsunami and its intensity. If a TDS (Tsunami Dampening System) of the type I describe above happens to be deployed in range of the tsunami, all relevant information is conveyed to the TDS controllers by the global tsunami warning system. All this happen in a matter of moments.
This leaves plenty of time (25min - 2hr) for the devices in the TDS array to be activated and to do their job. The question in this case would be - what form could such devices take? Perhaps mini-turbines which could dissipate the incoming energy into the ocean by first converting it to electrical energy.
Any such undertaking involves physical estimates for the size and shape of such an array, the precise capabilities of each device, etc. Many of these concerns involve simple physical questions.
Can you come up with the details of such a system or alternatively outline your own design? If you think that this idea would never work in the first place - for technological, physical or some other reasons - please explain what you think would be the prime obstacle and why?
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