05 June 2014: triangulating with sea level monitoring data: Christmas Island...
Several people have recently pointed out that Tsunami Early Warning Systems may have registered events triggered by an impact generated by MH370 hitting the surface of the Indian Ocean, probably at, or soon after, 00:19 UTC on 8 March.
The IOC UNESCO project on “Enhancing Tsunami Risk Assessment and Management, Strengthening Policy Support and Developing Guidelines for Tsunami Exercises in Indian Ocean Countries” is being jointly implemented by the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/IOTWS) and the Indian Ocean Tsunami Information Centre (IOTIC).
Historical data from different sea level station monitoring facilities can be freely accessed. The following is a quick summary of potentially interesting, although very week, signals, obtained from four different stations:
a small blip at Christmas Island at 00:32 UTC (13 min after impact)
a small blip at Cilacap2 at 00:38 UTC (19 min after impact)
a small blip at Pt. Murat at 01:53 UTC (94 min after impact)
a small blip at Cape Cuvier at 02:07 UTC (108 min after impact)
The screenshots are below, with the possibly relevant signals marked by green ovals:
If these weak fluctuations are indeed signals from the same event, then the time delays would mean that the impact location is
1.46 times further from Cilacap2 than from Christmas Island
7.23 times further from Pt. Murat than from Christmas Island
8.31 times further from Cape Cuvier than from Christmas Island
Given the "7th arc" (the 00:19 extrapolated ring), any two abovementioned time delays would have been enough to triangulate. Interestingly, there is a point on the 7th arc that satisfies all the constraints, with a small margin of error. This location has approximate coordinates: (-10.00S, 107.53E). The distances from this point are:
207 km to Christmas Island
297 km to Cilacap2, or 1.44 times further than from Christmas Island
1489 km to Pt. Murat, or 7:19 times further than from Christmas Island
1690 km to Cape Cuvier, or 8:16 times further than from Christmas Island
In other words, the waves generated by the impact at this location would have reached the stations with the delays close to the ones indicated above, moving with an average speed of 938 - 955 km/hr. While all of the signals are extremely weak and can be discounted on their own, the time alignment among all four signals makes the case stronger.
In addition, the triangulated point lies on the straight line between Cocos Islands and Christmas Island. That is, it can be hypothesised that the plane, having reached Cocos Island, turned towards Christmas Island and continued on a constant heading. For some reason, it passed Christmas Island too, and terminated in the vicinity of the 7th arc, close to the triangulated point (-10.00S, 107.53E).
A detailed view:
Most likely, these sea level fluctuations have aligned coincidentally. Nevertheless, this may be of interest...