Experts says U.S. barrier islands could disappear - Reuters

[Eugene]

Experts says U.S. barrier islands could disappear
13 Dec 2006 00:14:23 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 12 (Reuters) - A dramatic rise of sea levels
by the end of the century could wipe out some of America's barrier
islands off its eastern and southern coasts, researchers said
on Tuesday.

"Barrier islands may really look quite different in the future for our
children's children," Laura Moore of Oberlin College's geology department
old the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. "Barrier islands
may become vulnerable to threshold collapse."

Narrow barrier islands ring much of the East and Gulf Coasts of the United
States, protecting the mainland from storms, providing refuge to wildlife
and offering vacation possibilities to beach lovers.

Some of the barrier islands are quite built up, like Miami Beach, an
international tourist lure. Others like the Chandeleur Islands off New Orleans
are uninhabited but home to birds and wildlife. Fire Island off Long Island
offers a vacation refuge where typically wary New Yorkers often do not lock
their doors.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N12369516.htm

[Kolesar]

1. Key West, Florida used to be a coral reef when the seas were higher

[Bobbieo]

2. This Global Warming might be part of a geologic cycle

accelerated by human activity. It would not be the first time most of the earth was underwater and where I live in Yuma is proof - we live in sand dunes around here - 70 feet above sea level.

[angstlessk]

3. There are the Outer Banks in NC where I lived in Kitty Hawk for about 2 years

another barrier Island..which stops MANY hurricanes from hitting the mainland to hard!

[smirkymonkey]

4. Jersey shore....

I spent a week in Avalon, NJ (a barrier island) this summer (which I really didn't care for, but at least it was close to Cape May) - Anyway, we had almost a week of rain and left early because the water started coming up to the edges of the road and some of the roads were even flooded.

The roads that connected the barrier islands to the mainland were like little thin strips of pavement with the waves lapping at the shoulder. It was actually pretty scary - we thought we'd be stranded if we had stayed any longer.

And that was just a week of off-and-on rain - imagine if the sea level rose even a little bit. There goes many of America's seaside vacation spots

[Bobbieo]

5. Vacation spots and seaports!!!

[NNadir]

6. Long Island, NY, where I grew up, could be thought of as a barrier Island.

It's a glacial moraine actually, but the South Shore, where millions live, is surely threatened.

[Kolesar]

8. Fire Island, Sandy Hook, and the isthmus at Amagansett in the Hamptons

...are barrier islands that were formed by littoral currents moving sand along the shore and creating a straight offshore island.

[NNadir]

9. Well then, we should say good-bye to them.

They are done for.

[hatrack]

7. Don't worry! We taxpayers will pay to rebuild and relocate those homes!

After all, we can't let the second homes & vacation condos of the haves and the have-mores built on the worst terrain conceivable (other than on the slopes of active volcanoes) be swept away by unstoppable climate breakdown, now can we?

:eyes: