Sea level rise no longer the only impact climate change will bring to the world’s coastlines
Public Release: 20-Jul-2017
University of New South Wales
IMAGE: This is an aerial view of Sydney’s Collaroy Beach on 6 June 2016, the day after the ‘superstorm’. Credit: Christopher Drummond/UNSW
The world’s most extensive study of a major stormfront striking the coast has revealed a previously unrecognised 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 in Sydney, was published in the latest issue of the Nature journal 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.”
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 swathe from Queensland in the north all the way to Tasmania in the south. Three people died and there were more than 80 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 quadbikes and jetskis 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 metres of sand was eroded from beaches across a 200 km stretch of Australia’s eastern seaboard in just the three days of the storm – the equivalent to filling the Melbourne Cricket Ground (capacity 100,000 people) to the brim with sand more than seven times.
This was similar to the amount of sand shifted on the U.S. east coast by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, which killed 233 people and caused US$75 billion in damage.
It is the damaging power of wave energy – and the disruption of long-established storm patterns due to climate change – that present a new danger. The June 2016 ‘superstorm’ that devastated Australia’s east coast was only moderately intense, equivalent to a 1-in-5 year event: however, it did hit from the highly unusual easterly direction.
“And that’s what’s really worrying,” said Turner. “The damage we saw from a moderately intense storm last year is a harbinger of what’s to come,” said Turner. “Climate change is not only raising the oceans and threatening foreshores, but making our coastlines much more vulnerable as the direction of incoming storms change.
“We need to be prepared,” he added. “Not just for the fact that what we consider as ‘king tides’ will be the norm within decades, but that the storms that strike the coast will come from unexpected directions, damaging coastal areas and infrastructure once thought safe from storm damage.”
Previous studies have estimated that sea level rise from climate change – of between 40 cm and 1 metre over the next century – could put $226 billion of infrastructure at risk in Australia alone. This includes road and rail, commercial and residential buildings and even light industrial buildings. But also threatened are 75 hospitals and health centres, 258 police, fire and ambulance stations, five power stations and 41 waste disposal facilities.
“When it comes to severe weather, a lot of the attention is paid to tropical storms like cyclones and hurricanes,” said Harley. “But this data highlights the amount of coastal damage that can occur with east-coast lows in Australia. Despite creating near hurricane-force winds, intense rain and large ocean waves of up to 9 meters, they are less worrisome to many people.”
Narrabeen Beach in Sydney experienced the most erosion seen in 40 years of monitoring – and 36% greater than the second-most erosive event in May 1997. But it was not the worst affected: “Although a swimming pool at Narrabeen became the iconic image of the June 2016 storm, the greatest erosion was actually seen at Nine Mile Beach, an unpopulated area just north of Forster,” added Harley. “And that was due to a localised focusing of wave energy.”
Coupled with a vast bank of data collected over the past 40 years at Narrabeen-Collaroy beaches – one of the world’s longest-running beach erosion monitoring programs – coastal engineers now have enough information to build models that can accurately predict the damage storms would do days before an event.
It would also provide a crucial insight into how climate change will interact with the long cycles of El Niño and La Niña, and predict coastal vulnerability from sea level rise and changing storm patterns in the decades ahead, said senior lecturer Kristen Splinter, an engineer and modelling specialist at WRL who deep-dives into the data to build predictive tools.
And not just for Australia, but for the world. “With this data, we can now construct accurate coastal erosion models, to predict damage days before a storm hits,” said Splinter. “It will also be pivotal in understanding the future effect of climate change on coastal variability around the world.”
Turner agreed: “This isn’t just about protecting beaches: billions of dollars’ worth of city infrastructure around the world is threatened by coastal erosion: buildings, roads, power and water utility corridors, sewerage lines – and this will only worsen as sea levels rise, causing storm tides to do more damage and reach deeper inland.”
###
The WRL team collected the reams of data with the help of staff from the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage and worked with UNSW’s School of Aviation. Other authors were Kristen Splinter, Matthew Phillips and Joshua Simmons from WRL; Michael Kinsela and David Hanslow from the Office of Environment and Heritage; the School of Aviation’s Jason Middleton and Peter Mumford; and Andrew Short from the University of Sydney.
BACKGROUND ON UNSW’S FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
UNSW’s Faculty of Engineering is the powerhouse of engineering research in Australia, comprising of nine schools, 32 research centres and participating or leading 10 Cooperative Research Centres. It is ranked in the world’s top 50 engineering faculties, and home to Australia’s largest cohort of engineering undergraduate, postgraduate, domestic and international students. UNSW itself and is ranked #1 in Australia for producing millionaires (#33 globally) and ranked #1 in Australia for graduates who create technology start-ups.
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
“It would also provide a crucial insight into how climate change will interact with the long cycles of El Niño and La Niña, and predict coastal vulnerability from sea level rise and changing storm patterns in the decades ahead,”
It is no surprise that the ENSO is short and longer multi-decadal term controls frequency of the Americas’ west coast precipitation.
Additionally it appears that the change in direction of the trade winds and piling up of water in W. Pacific also has a major impact on the rate of the Earth’s rotation (LOD).
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ECrL.gif
If one of the unexpected directions from which these new superwave storms will come from turns out to be from the inland interior of Australia then it will be be time to worry – until then it looks like another hysterical virtue and fund seeking rant by the “many Asian ports will be underwater by 2010” brigade. “Wolf! Wolf! No really Wolf”.
I’ve lived in the area for the past 40 years. There have been far bigger storms. This is simply what happens when you build houses on sand at the edge of the ocean. Wait long enough and a storm will wash you away.
Shifting storm patterns are part of the current climate. Costal areas have always been in a state of change and are riskier then other areas. Eventually the current interglacial period will end and the new ice age will bring with it lower sea levels.
Storms sometimes take strange paths because weather has always been occasionally acting up in one way or another. One cause is normal random variations in Pacific ocean currents, sometimes even random current shifts in other oceans.
Personally I find it reassuring to learn that until this threat was identified (aka geomorphology) sea level rise was recognized by a powerhouse of engineering as the only impact climate change will bring to the world’s coastlines. I’m quite sure powerhouse engineers can handle a few mm/yr.
There is sleight of hand in this report. ” When it comes to severe weather, a lot of the attention is paid to tropical storms like cyclones and hurricanes,… this data highlights the amount of coastal damage that can occur with east-coast lows in Australia … ” So they can say they are leaving out cyclones. Probably just as well, because I doubt that any of these alleged engineers are RPEQ (Registered Professional Engineer Queensland) and need to avoid appearing to provide advice for that state.
As usual they slip in the usual unsubstantiated sea level rise alarmism.
Cyclones in the southern hemisphere rotate clockwise, so hit the east coast from the same direction. More severe if you are at the epicentre or south of it, less severe if you are north of it, as the passage over the land results in attenuation. (If they come OFF the land as occasionally happens, they are attenuated: intensification only occurs over the ocean.)
The report appears to be arguing that since east coast lows are not cyclonic, then the wind direction is more variable, and some directions would cause greater problems than others. because of local coastal topography. Nothing new here. There have been numerous east coast lows, and more than adequate records of wind direction and localised damage to establish the effects. They didn’t need to go clowning around on jet-skis.
The SMH ( Sydney Morning Herald ) coverage of the report stated that there had been an average recession of 22 meters across the 177 kilometer study area. That is a phenomenal claim and I’d suggest exagerated, in any case most if not all erosion had recovered at most locations, Wamberal Beach NSW is back to its normal parameters ( MHW line at Wamberal has been fairly static for 130 years – backed up by surveys held by Manly Hydraulic Labs ) . The study claimed that East coast lows will shift wind direction from South to East under climate change influence. In any scenarios there should be winners and losers, so areas previously affected by southerly winds should be better off.
Liars or idiots. There are no other excuses for continuing to claim any bad weather event is a sign of human cause climate change. Back to burning witches very soon I suppose.
It reads like a very long winded excuse for saying that they are really just not very good at predicting weather-related things, and they expect to get worse.
“……, but that the storms that strike the coast will come from unexpected directions, damaging coastal areas and infrastructure once thought safe from storm damage.”
Scour and fill ain’t what it used to be. Maps of routes fill the Gulf of Mexico, but some places and routes have reasonably been more susceptible. Numerous factors affect this making angles complex, but those of us following these for decades apparently have to recalculate. Claudette in 2003, something like a broad strong1/weak 2, came onto the Texas coast, then instead of properly crossing the Red River somewhere, turned west heading toward what would be and probably still is a safer refuge in land west of the Pecos. Nevertheless, everybody still knew it came from the Gulf, direction precision increasing over the years. Methinks they need to study history.
It reminds me of a downhill neighbor with a sunken living room in the floodplain who was quoted on TV saying something like “Never seen flooding like this in the four years we lived here.” No doubt true. Some of the central Texas coast awaits the return of the 1919 like storm where there has been lots of susceptible building. Those since have come in at different angles, even parallel to the coast. Hurricane in 1985 Louisiana did a pirouette, T shirts, said “I survived Hurricane Juan three times.”
Everyone wants to say they’ve had something published and inserting CAGW is the proven way to make that happen. Since any critical follow up is as rare as a credible peer review it’s a safe bet to further one’s stature with a chosen crowd.
“waterfront areas once thought safe are likely to be hammered and damaged as never before”
Maybe so but no evidence that fossil fuel emissions has something to do with it or that it can be mitigated by cutting emissions.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3000932
So how can we judge the quality of a climate research article. First by logic. To wit, this article is easily identified as pure hype. We’re it to have a scientific basis, it would have pointed out the fact that this shift in wave direction means many more beaches that commonly are more directly slapped by waves are now less at risk, more sheltered as it were! Indeed ‘sheltered’ beaches are poorly developed and prone to corral flotsam and jetsam, muds and seaweed growth.. They will benefit from a direct sea clean up.
I can see we will be sorting articles on all sciences and engineering by source country before long (and by gender in climate science? – com’on girls, you came into this mannly science when corruption was rife and young male students were abandoning climate as a choice [note your instructors are all male]). Oz needs a major academic muck out. Science rots under neomarxbrothers ideology.
How many new south whales are there at this university?
It is a shame that these researchers did not do some background checks. The National Library of Australia has an excellent web site where you can search digitized newspapers. A quick check shows that the subject storm was neither unprecedented, nor particularly remarkable in the historic context.
To recapitulate about Sandy, the NWS forecast that, when Hurricane Sandy was well offshore, it would transform from a warm core tropical cyclone to a cold core extratropical cyclone before landfall. Hence, no tropical storm warnings were ever issued. Unfortunately for the NWS and TPC, a decaying/remnant eye feature moved westward and onshore into NJ north of Atlantic City with a simultaneous temperature increase at several surface-sensed sites, indicating it was still a warm core storm, and thus tropical. However, as no tropical warnings had been issued, they could not very well call it a tropical storm (I believe sustained winds were below hurricane force; gusts were above). (And we will refrain herewith from entering into a discussion about the merits or lack thereof of failing to issue appropriately more galvanizing warnings for public safety, or the generation of confusion about the warning types (tropical vs. extratropical) that actually were issued.) Here’s another fine little point: it was tweeted by the Meteorologist-In-Charge that the storm made landfall before it actually did. (Does an extratropical storm really make landfall? If not, why the tweet?) Could this have been done in order to agree with the forecast? It must be handy when you control the verification process and call the storm when and what you forecast, no?
Sandy mimicked a (probably Cat 1) hurricane in about the same location, movement, and strength in the early 1900s. The difference was, of course, the change in shoreline and near-shore construction, as well as time of month and day with respect to astronomical tide heights. Regarding Sandy’s size, there have been larger hurricanes, and of course much stronger and more damaging hurricanes in NJ. A hurricane which followed the present course of the Garden State Parkway (north-northeast a few miles inland from the beaches) occurred in, I believe, 1821. Were that to occur today, the damage would be staggering, much greater than Sandy. And, rest assured, a similar storm WILL occur at some point.
The discussion in the referenced paper about storm path is ridiculous. There have always been rogue or contrary storms which do not follow the norm. The paper is total poppycock and nonsense, with at least some obvious (intentional?) misinformation.
The tautoligical stupidity of studies like this is embarrassing.
If this storm did indeed remove thousands of tons of sand from a specific coastal area, is it possible that it was deposited elsewhere? If so, has this new beach now protected a previously vulnerable area? Sands shift and coastlines change – sometimes exposing dwellings to damage and sometimes helping to protect them.
UNSW why don’t you waddle down to Fort Denison and check out the tide gauge?
These people either have short memories or are just to young to have seen it. The 1974 storm was way worse. The swell was bigger and the damage worse.
https://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en-AU&ie=UTF-8&source=android-browser&q=bilgola+beach+1974&gfe_rd=cr&ei=3TlzWdvMK7HM8gfw6IzoBQ&gws_rd=ssl#gfe_rd=cr&gws_rd=ssl&imgrc=61Z1NkF757U5rM:&xxri=12
“…The swell was bigger and the damage worse….” That’s just because it hasn’t been adjusted yet. Give it some time.
And whats happening with sea level? http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/07/study-sea-level-rise-revised-downward/
Flannery should sell his waterfront properties fast…
in northeast florida, where I live, we are in an old house that has survived many a storm. For years people with more dollars than sense have been building houses right at the ocean’s edge, thereby blocking us oldies from beach access that we have had for years. Last year, Hurricane Matthew went along the coast and ruined a lot of these rich, beach-blocking homes. The owners now want the state/feds to assist them in rebuilding, which ain’t gonna happen, for the most part, and they get absolutely no sympathy from the rest of us. The foolish man built his house upon the sand,,,,and the rest is history.
The real lesson is the simplest one: the more the AGWers rattle on with panic attacks and hyperbolic language, the more ridiculous they become when reality (e.g., research into similar past events) shows them up.
I if you read this report on storms that hit Sydney you will see where the truth lies http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/northern-beaches/one-of-the-storms-that-hit-us-in-1974-was-among-the-three-worst-since-white-settlement/news-story/0cd5ca874d6b37206762d8485e4eb442