Debris From Japan Tsunami Is Floating Toward The U.S. Coast - weather.com

Debris From Japan Tsunami Is Floating Toward The U.S. Coast - weather.com

Debris From Japan Tsunami Is Floating Toward The U.S. Coast

By Terrell Johnson Published: Nov 6, 2013, 0:13 PM EST weather.com

In The Pacific Ocean

Naval air crewmen assigned to the Black Knights of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron (HS) 4 inspect debris drifting in the Pacific Ocean from the March 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck northern Japan, taken on March 12, 2011. (U.S. Navy)

Somewhere out in the Pacific between Hawaii and the West Coast, massive amounts of widely scattered debris from Japan's 2011 tsunami are slowly drifting toward the U.S., carrying with it tons of potentially toxic junk and non-native creatures clinging alongside.
The result of a devastating magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck off the coast of northern Japan in March 2011, the debris was unleashed when the tsunami washed an estimated 5 million tons of it – including everything from boats and household appliances to wood planks and soccer balls – into the ocean.
While about 70 percent of it sank to the bottom of the ocean just off Japan's coast, the remainder (about 1.5 million tons) drifted out into the Pacific and pieces of it have been spotted washing up along the U.S. coastline ever since, everywhere from the islands along the Gulf of Alaska to San Diego, Calif.
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Since shortly after the tsunami struck, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been tracking the progress of the debris across the ocean and using computer model simulations to predict where it will go.
Called GNOME (for "General NOAA Operational Modeling Environment"), the NOAA model relied at first on past ocean currents data to forecast the path as the debris made its way along the ocean surface. Today, the model has been updated to incorporate wind speed and how it pushes along objects scattered on the ocean surface.
Those objects – which include a soccer ball from the tsunami zone that washed up on Alaska's Middleton Island, and was returned to its 16-year-old owner back in Japan in April 2012 – also are reportedly floating toward the U.S. with plentiful animals in tow.
More than 160 non-native species of animals have been found hitching rides on pieces of the debris, according to Fox News, which interviewed John Chapman, a marine scientist at Oregon State University who has studied the debris.
"We're finding that all kinds of Japanese organisms are growing on the debris," he told FoxNews.com, adding that his team had found specimens of European blue mussel, "which was introduced to Asia long ago, and then it grew on a lot of these things that are coming across the Pacific ... we'd never seen it here, and we don't particularly want it here."
This and other non-native species that have been found on the debris could be invasive, he added. "We thought, 'the Pacific can't be crossed by living organisms from Japan' ... and we were wrong, very wrong."
NOAA says it plans to track the movement of the debris for the foreseeable future, because "concerns persist" that it could wash up along the shorelines of Hawaii, Alaska, Canada and the U.S. mainland for the next few years.
In addition to the debris, scientists also say that a wave of "slightly radioactive" water that washed into the sea from the Fukushima nuclear reactor could make its way to the U.S. coastline sometime in 2014 – though it will be so diluted by the time it reaches these shores that it won't pose any threat.
Updated Nov. 6: NOAA issued a news release yesterday to dispel rumors that a solid "island" of debris was headed for the U.S. coast:
"There is no solid mass of debris from Japan heading to the United States," NOAA said in the release.
"At this point, nearly three years after the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, whatever debris remains floating is very spread out. It is spread out so much that you could fly a plane over the Pacific Ocean and not see any debris since it is spread over a huge area, and most of the debris is small, hard-to-see objects."
See the full news release at NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration, or see NOAA's Frequently Asked Questions on the tsunami debris.