The paper appearing in Nature “An assessment of whether long-term global changes in waves and storm surges have impacted global coastlines” emerges with good news: The coasts of the world’s oceans are stable.
Al Gore doesn’t have to worry about his beachfront home.
Germany’s European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) here presents its newest video (in Germany) that features the recent study on sea level rise and its impact with respect to significant wave heights, storm surges and coastlines.
According to the authors of the Nature publication, there’s limited evidence for wave and storm surge impact on long-term shoreline change and the available datasets do not show a clear correlation between long-term shoreline change and changes in wave and storm surge over the past three decades.
Moreover, there have been minimal changes in significant wave height and storm surge over the past 30 years, and they are likely too small to have a measurable impact on sandy shorelines.
Other factors such as sea level rise, terrestrial sediment sources, alongshore sediment transport, fluvial sediment loads, land reclamation, and local sediment sinks/sources can significantly impact shoreline position, and thus may mask any clear relationship between wave/surge forcing and shoreline response over the past 30 years.
In essence, while wave and storm surge can influence coastal erosion, the available data does not provide conclusive evidence of their significant impact on long-term shoreline change over the past three decades.
Other factors seem to play a more dominant role.
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very useful article
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