‘Climate change’…we just can’t get away from it these days. Carbon everywhere, rising ocean levels, floods, droughts, and never-ending ‘Seinfeld’ reruns…make it stop! To us regular folks though, the evidence isn't really seen in the day-to-day. So as Jerry would say, ”What’s the deal?”
Just like castles made of sand: USGS researcher Ben Jones measuring AK coastal erosion on the Beaufort Sea.
Courtesy Christopher Arp, USGS
Well skeptics, read on. According to researchers with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at the University of Colorado, parts of the US are literally falling into the sea due to factors associated with climate change. Sure, coastal erosion happens, but this is getting ridiculous.
How do they know? Over two years, a team of researchers from CU and USGS used weather stations, GPS data, wave intensity/water temperature sensors, and time-lapse cameras to record coastal erosion between Point Borrow and Prudhoe Bay, Alaska during the summer months when the sea ice is out. In these videos, you can watch the coast crumble to the sea. That's right, you can actually see the Alaskan coast fall apart before your eyes! (watch the video)
Affected coastline: Alaska's endangered coast, with Beaufort Sea to the North.
Courtesy Goodle Maps, edited by Prescott Esquire
Why is this a big deal? It used to be that this coast would lose a handful of yards each year during the short summer season, but more recently, this coast is falling apart on the order of 30-45 feet annually. That means that between the time INSTAAR started looking at this problem and today, the coast has lost almost the length of a whole football field! And, according to the video linked above, that’s valuable real estate for migrating birds and other critters. In addition to habitat loss, think about it: our country, the US, literally falling apart. Lame.
How is this all going down? The biggest factor is the coast itself. The soil is usually 50-80% ice; the rest is silt and mossy plant material. Now, imagine a brick building where all the mortar (stuff between the bricks) melts away and you have an idea of what happens to this soil when summer heats up.
But it’s more than that: Robert Anderson, researcher with INSTAAR and CU Geographic guru tells us that there is a TRIPLE-WHAMMY at play where each ‘whammy’ works together towards coastal carnage.
Whammy 1: Longer the ice is away, the more soil melting occurs (more melting=more destruction).
Whammy 2: Longer the sea ice is away, the warmer the ocean gets (up to 60ºF, warmest temp. on record…ever).
Whammy 3: Further back the ice melts, the bigger the waves can get (called the “fetch effect”).
More stuff: The buzz on this one is crazy, just Google “Alaskan coastal erosion”. USGS did a study up there in 2007 (USGS article), Nat Geo has got another video, even Reuters is on this story. Anderson’s paper is still pending, but the researchers have presented these findings at annual American Geophysical Union meetings in ‘08 and ’09 (abstract). Check it out and let me know what you think.
Tags : Remember the wild video from about a year ago of a huge rainfall causing an embankment to collapse and drain all the water from Lake Delton into the Wisconsin River? You can find it here. A year later, the embankment is patched, water has filled the man-made lake basin and recreation seekers are coming back. You can read about that here. I do want to know, however, how they're going to restock fish in the lake. The USA Today story says that the lake has been stocked with minnows that won't be ready for fishing for a couple more years. I don't know about you, but I usually set my sights higher when I go fishing than just settling for some minnows.
Big wheel keep on turnin': Modern agriculture produces more food on less space than traditional forms.
Courtesy Andrew Stawarz
Continuing our string of counter-intuitive ecological findings, today we read an article which argues that factory farms are good for the environment. It turns out that people need food. And the 6-billion-plus people on the planet today need a LOT of food. So much so, that 38% of the Earth’s land surface is dedicated to farming. That’s a lot. But, thanks to innovations like pest-resistant foods, artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and expanding irrigation, it’s less than half the area that would be necessary under more traditional farming methods.
(Genetically modified crops are particularly beneficial, as they require fewer chemicals, less fertilizer and help reduce erosion.)
This is not to say that big farms are not without their environmental impact. But that impact is a lot less than it would have been without these innovations. So, on this Earth Day, let us give thanks to the farmers for feeding us, and for doing it so efficiently.
Geology at work: Famous stone arch collapses in Utah national park
One of the iconic images of Arches National Park in Utah, the Wall Arch, collapsed last week. Global warming is not to blame for this, just regular old geologic forces of erosion and gravity working against the beauty of the rock formation. Click here for the full story and before and after photos. The last major arch to collapse at the park went down in 1991.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma in 2005, Cancun has had a hard time keeping sand on its beaches in its resort areas. Rebuilding efforts from the hurricane are quickly eroding away again, with up to 30 percent losses.
Please contact us if you have questions about the rights on this image.
What a beach: In the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma in 2005, Cancun has had a hard time keeping sand on its beaches in its resort areas. Rebuilding efforts from the hurricane are quickly eroding away again, with up to 30 percent losses.After a devastating hit by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, Mexico spent $19 million to rebuild beaches in the popular tourist destination of Cancun. Now, those efforts appear to be quickly eroding away.
Following the devastating impacts of the hurricane, ocean depths were dredged and eight miles of popular beach front were rebuilt, and actually expanded, to try to prevent the huge loss of beach to happen again.
But less than two years later, up to 30 percent of that sand is now missing. On some portions of the beach, swimmers and tanners have to jump down a three-foot drop in the beach to get to the current sand level.
What’s going on?
Environmentalists in the area insist any efforts will be wasted efforts unless more vegetation is worked into the areas between hotels and beaches. The roots of those plants and trees would help stabilize the impacts of erosion along the coast, they contend.
But the people in the tourist industry feel that building an artificial reef along the beach would help to lessen the impacts of waves and tides on the beaches. They’re drawing up plans to create a public/private partnership to develop and maintain such a reef.
The tourist industry concerns also say that there is a cyclical action to the growth and decrease of Cancun’s beaches. It contends that erosion happens in the winter months when coastal winds and currents are stronger. Then the sands return to the beach in calmer months.
But the environmentalists contend that situation has been getting progressively worse since the 1970s when large hotels began being developed along the beaches and native vegetation was pulled out.
What do you think? Share your thoughts here with other Science Buzz readers.
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