To Show Just How Big This Tsunami Was, Scientists Built a 'Jet Ski' Video Game Where You Die

Last year, the world experienced a tsunami that was almost the biggest in recorded history. Yet, no one was there to actually experience it. That's honestly probably for the best, as the tsunami in the Tracy Arm fjord high up in remote Alaska resulted in a 1,500-foot wall of water would've killed everything in its path. 

In fact, the whole Earth shook for days after the event, as the tsunami itself reshaped the fjord completely due to it becoming "trapped" within the fjord itself. But the scale of the tsunami, and its destructive power, is hard to comprehend when you're just telling folks about it. And given no one was—thankfully—there to see the tsunami, we only have the aftermath to help show that righteous natural obliteration. 

Scientists, however, are clever people. And they want to show the world exactly what this tsunami would've looked and felt with real-world consequences. That's to say, to show just how big and bad this tsunami was, they built a video game where the gamer is piloting a 'jet ski' and attempting to outrun the 1,500-foot water column, blasting forward at 70 mph. 

This, however, is an unwinnable game where you almost immediately die. And that's sort of the point. 

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According to CNN, "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."

However, in recreating the tsunami to show the scale, the researchers built a video game where you're behind the bars of a PWC traveling at full speed as the water column races toward you from behind. "If you can have them experience that disaster digitally, they will recall it as something close to the real event," Professor Patrick Lynett of the University of Southern California told CNN, adding, "It’s much better than reading about it."

The idea behind the unavoidable death is to both give people a reason why they need to be wary of riding to glaciers on PWC-type crafts or on cruise ships docking close by, as well as showcase the power of climate change on our ecosystems. 

"I certainly hope that we don’t get a repeat event this summer, but it’s entirely possible," said Lynett, "As hazard scientists, as disaster scientists, we want to minimize the risk to people and infrastructure from these events.” That "entirely possible" caveat is real, as the world warms, the oceans warm, and that warming causes these glaciers to calve or cause mountainsides, like the Tracy Arm fjord mountainside, to shatter and fall into the ocean. 

But as a result of the science, it's a cool way to both get learned on the dangers of tsunamis, the dangers of our warming globe, and the dangers of riding a PWC through all that. They really scienced the shit out of this.

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