Coastal
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Last week there were several stories based on a new calculation of the impacts of rising sea levels on cities around the world published in Nature Communications. The new calculation shows that cities are more likely to be inundated by higher sea levels in the future than originally thought because of an improvement in how…
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When we look at sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, we are commonly looking for signs of El Niño or La Niña, which can greatly affect the climate of the Southeast, especially in winter. But recently the most interesting part of the Pacific has not been near the equator where we usually see ENSO…
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Measurements of sea level across the world show rising waters along most ocean coastlines, including the United States. But according to a story by WRLN in Miami, the regular forecasts for high and low tide do not take that rising water into account yet, leading to bigger errors in tide forecasts than would normally be…
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A recent paper found that decades-long, natural climate cycles have determined the northern extent of Florida mangroves for at least the past 250 years. Freeze events that took place approximately every 10 to 30 years caused die-offs, during which mangroves were replaced by salt marshes until warmer trends spurred regrowth. So far, there has not…
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This week marks the 30th anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Hugo on the South Carolina coast. Hugo caused tremendous damage along the coast, wiping out a lot of property as well as causing tremendous damage inland from the strong winds. I remember flying into Charlotte NC the day after Hugo and seeing many trees…
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Hurricanes and tropical storms can remake coastlines. This is one reason that we evacuate people from vulnerable coastal areas even when storms stay out to sea. Here is a set of before and after images of the North Carolina coast before and after Hurricane Dorian approached the area. In some places the effects are subtle,…
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If you have ever watched “The Day After Tomorrow” movie starring Dennis Quaid, you might have noticed early in the movie that climate scientist Quaid notes that the North Atlantic Ocean Current is slowing down, which helped lead to the climate crisis depicted in the movie. While most of the climate science in the movie…