AbstractWe study ocean waves caused by an asteroid airburst located over the ocean. The concern is that the waves would damage distant coastal cities. Simple qualitative analysis suggests that the wave energy is proportional to the ocean depth and the strength and speed of the blast. Computational simulations using GeoClaw and the shallow water equations show that explosions from realistic asteroids do not endanger distant cities. We explore the validity of the shallow water, Boussinesq, and linearized Euler equations to model these water waves.