Arctic coast eroding up to 8 metres a year: study

[alp227]

Source: CBC News

Arctic coastlines are on the retreat, especially in Canada, and their disappearance has significant implications for both the ecosystem and the economic and social life of the North, according to a group of international researchers.

The changes are particularly dramatic in the Beaufort Sea along the coast of the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Alaska, and in the Laptev and East Siberian Seas, along Russia's north coast. Some sections have seen erosion rates reach more than eight metres a year as protective sea ice along the coast disappears.

The study found that on average, the Arctic coastline is retreating by half a metre a year.

"Every single element of the North is going to be affected, right from the engineering side to how the Inuit interact with their environment," Wayne Pollard, a McGill University geomorphologist who contributed to the study, told The Canadian Press.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/04/18/tech-arctic-coast-retreat-erosion.html

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, alp.