Half of the Sandy Beaches Around the World Could Vanish by 2100, Warns Researchers
Anusha Satish (Author) Published Date : Mar 04, 2020 10:23 ISTScience
It is scary to accept half the sandy beaches are to be vanished by 2100:
Climate change and sea-level rise are seamless disasters for a while now. It is envisaged that by 2100 half of the sandy beaches would vanish according to researchers' disclosure on Monday. The saddened it is to know that even humanity reduces the carbon footprint and fossil fuel pollution, there is no feasibility of avoiding the disappearance stated in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Sandy beaches are the first line of defense against coastal storms and flooding; otherwise, the impacts would be relatively higher. Vital measures are being taken in developed countries like the USA, but in some countries, the viability is of such a huge engineering base is not affordable and impossible. Australia is predicted to be hit hard, with nearly 15000 kilometers of white beach coastline washed away over the next 80 years, followed by Canada, Chile, the United States.
The top 10 countries which would get tremendously affected by this scenario include Australia, Canada, Chile, the United States, Mexico, China, Russia, Argentina, India, and Brazil. A lot of construction business, sea-level rise, storm surge from hurricanes, and reduced sediment from dammed rivers are eroding the shorelines leading to the perceived impact threatening the feasibility of livelihood.
There are trend lines for three decades drawn by Vousdoukas and colleagues to assess how quickly the beaches might disappear. Two climate change scenarios are considered. The "Worst Case" RCP8.5 pathway assumes the carbon emissions continue to be the same, and earth itself boost atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations might be permafrost independent of human action. The other scenario is RCP4.5 the humanity cap global warming at 3C, which is well below the 2C limit called for in the Paris Agreement.
In the former case, the world will lose 49.5% of sandy beaches by 2100 132000 kilometers of coastal line. In the latter, a little conservative approach, 95000 kilometers f coastal line, will be eroded by 2100 most of it within the next 30 years.
However, many scientists said that the approach is conservative, and erosion would be doubling than predicted. Coastal erosion of Indus and Ganges delta areas of South Asia is expected to be extremely rapid, according to a researcher. Also, ice losses from Antarctica and Greenland are tracking the worst-case climate warming scenarios.