Battered West Coast a lesson on warming, study finds

[IDemo]

msnbc.com
updated 7/13/2011 4:54:03 PM ET

Severe erosion along the West Coast during the winter of 2009-2010 offers a look at, and lessons for, a warming world with rising sea levels, a new study finds.

A natural El Nino cycle that warms the Pacific Ocean produced those severe conditions, but computer models suggest that similar damage could come from sea level rise tied to human-caused greenhouse gases.

"If these trends continue," U.S. government and academic experts wrote in their study, "the combination of large waves and higher water levels, particularly when enhanced by El Ninos, can be expected to be more frequent in the future, resulting in greater risk of coastal erosion, flooding, and cliff failures."

Lead author Patrick Barnard, a coastal geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, told msnbc.com that the study serves as a platform "to understand the broad coastal impact of conditions we are likely to experience more frequently in the future."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43741940/ns/us_news-environment/

[aquart]

1. Gonna be a bloody century.