Coastal perilShifting storms threaten once placid areas with extreme waves, extensive damage
The world’s most extensive study of the impacts of coastal storm fronts in a changing climate has found that rising seas are no longer the only threat. The study of a major storm front striking the coast has revealed a previously unrecognized danger from climate change: as storm patterns fluctuate, waterfront areas once thought safe are likely to be hammered and damaged as never before.
The world’s most extensive study of the impacts of coastal storm fronts in a changing climate has found that rising seas are no longer the only threat.
The world’s most extensive study of a major storm front striking the coast has revealed a previously unrecognized danger from climate change: as storm patterns fluctuate, waterfront areas once thought safe are likely to be hammered and damaged as never before.
The study, led by engineers at University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, was published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Scientific Reports.
“If you have waterfront property or infrastructure that has previously been sheltered from the impacts of extreme waves, this is worrying news” said Mitchell Harley, lead author and a senior research associate at UNSW’s Water Research Laboratory (WRL). “What this study confirms, is that simply by changing direction, storms can be many times more devastating. And that’s what we’re facing in many locations as the climate continues to change.”
Ian Turner, director of WRL and a co-author, said sea level rise was no longer the only factor at play when preparing for the impact of climate change on waterfront areas. “Shifts in storm patterns and wave direction will also have major consequences because they distort and amplify the natural variability of coastal patterns.”
UNSW says that the study relied on data collected during the June 2016 “superstorm” that battered eastern Australia. One of the fiercest in decades, it inundated towns, smashed buildings, swept away cars and infrastructure and triggered hundreds of evacuations across a 3,000 km swath from Queensland in the north all the way to Tasmania in the south. Three people died and there were more than eighty rescues from stranded cars.
A week before the storm hit, and for many weeks afterwards, the researchers used a fleet of drones, floating sensor buoys, aircraft fitted with LiDAR laser ranging sensors, fixed cameras on buildings and quad bikes and jet skis fitted with real-time satellite positioning across a 200 km swathe of the eastern seaboard. This produced the largest and most detailed pre- and post-storm coastline analysis ever done.
They found that 11.5 million cubic meters of sand were eroded from beaches across a 200 km stretch of Australia’s eastern seaboard in just the three days of the storm – the equivalent of filling the Melbourne Cricket Ground (capacity 100,000 people) to the brim with sand more than seven times.
