So nuclear explosions in water tend to have different effects as water is denser than air and incompressible(and if I'm not mistaken it tends to absorb a significant amount of blast energy). But I have not found any information about nuclear tests directly on the surf or extremely close to shoreline. Now I imagine that if, say, a massive 50 megaton warhead detonated underwater in a city harbor within 500 feet of the shore, a portion of the fireball would spread onto land and you would have some massive waves generated. But it would also vaporize much of the water in the harbor. But would that create a deluge of water washing onto the shore as well? It would be useful to have access to a simulator but that tends to involve supercomputers.
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3$\begingroup$ My recollection is that some nuclear weapon tests were conducted on very small islands, which would probably include the effects you want. $\endgroup$– StephenG - Help UkraineCommented Aug 4 at 19:53
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3$\begingroup$ @StephenG-HelpUkraine my recollection is that these islands no longer exist, which inadvertedly answers the question as "the beach would move inwards by the difference between the fireball diameter and the distance of the detonation to the shore" $\endgroup$– paulinaCommented Aug 4 at 20:18
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$\begingroup$ It's worth mentioning that nobody has 50Mton warheads. The US uses 250kton warheads and Russia seems to be going with 1Mton devices. At least that's the documented range of devices in active arsenals. These are plenty powerful enough to achieve the necessary military effects. $\endgroup$– FlatterMannCommented Aug 5 at 9:47
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1$\begingroup$ @FlatterMann The R-36 missile, which is still in service, is capable of carrying a large warhead. There was a variant which is no longer currently in service which carried a single 20MT warhead. So I would say it isn't too farfetched that some of those are still lying around in storage somewhere. The main use of them would be to destroy hardened targets like Cheyenne Mountain Complex. $\endgroup$– Mr XCommented Aug 6 at 21:43
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1$\begingroup$ @MrX I stand corrected, again. $\endgroup$– FlatterMannCommented Aug 7 at 0:24
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