World's beaches disappearing due to climate crisis - study
Source: The Guardian
World's beaches disappearing due to climate crisis – study
UK on course to lose a quarter of its sandy coast because of human-driven erosion
Stefano Valentino
Mon 2 Mar 2020 16.00 GMT
Last modified on Mon 2 Mar 2020 20.30 GMT
Almost half of the world’s sandy beaches will have retreated significantly by the end of the century as a result of climate-driven coastal flooding and human interference, according to new research.
The sand erosion will endanger wildlife and could inflict a heavy toll on coastal settlements that will no longer have buffer zones to protect them from rising sea levels and storm surges. In addition, measures by governments to mitigate against the damage are predicted to become increasingly expensive and in some cases unsustainable.
In 30 years, erosion will have destroyed 36,097km (22,430 miles) or 13.6% of sandy coastlines identified from satellite images by scientists for the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European commission. They predict the situation will worsen in the second half of the century, washing away a further 95,061km or 25.7% of Earth’s beaches.
These estimates are far from the most catastrophic; they rely on an optimistic forecast of international action to fight climate breakdown, a scenario known as RCP4.5. In this scenario of reduced ice-cap melting and lower thermal expansion of water, oceans will only have risen by 50cm by 2100.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/02/world-sandy-beaches-disappearing-due-to-climate-crisis-study