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Originally Posted by MageB420666
If the bomb is detonated on the surface it would do little in the way of creating a tsunami type wave.
Tsunamis are created when a large volume of ocean water is suddenly displaced, causing the wave to actually extend all the way down to the bottom of the ocean, normal ocean waves only travel along the surface or just below it. Earth quakes would generally cause a larger tsunami than a bomb because they can displace a larger quantity of water than a bomb, even though a bomb may release more energy than the earthquake.
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That, and while there was 5 megatonnes of energy in the tsunami, there was over 1000 megatonnes of energy in the earthquake.
Less than 0.5% of the energy of the earthquake was turned into the tsunami.
Nuclear bombs have simular problems: they release alot of energy as heat and heavy radiation. Heavy radiation doesn't make a wave. A bunch of the energy would be wasted turning water into steam (or plasma) and escape. Another bunch would be absorbed by the sea floor. Only the parts that pushed water would form a tsunami.
If you wanted to make a really big tsunami with a nuclear weapon or two, I'd be tempted to find some geologically unstable rocks and knock them into the ocean. Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon..._tsunami.shtml Just push 500 millon tonnes of rock into the water, and you get a super-sonic wave crossing the Atlantic Ocean, destroying everything within 20 km of the coast.
Sort of cute really. Using chemical explosives to trigger a fission explosive to trigger a fusion explosives, which causes alot of rocks to drop, which pushes water, which crosses a quarter of the world and kills millions. Hmm, maybe cute isn't the right word.
As an aside: a computer simulation of a 1.1 km rock hitting the ocean
http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...id_030602.html
Big wave! They got a 60 megaton impact-blast and a 400 foot tall wave from a 61 000 km/hour impact.