• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says July 4, 2022
‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation July 4, 2022
Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History July 4, 2022
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Demand & Distribution Air & Marine

Arctic Ice Loss to Bring Six-Metre Waves, More Coastal Erosion

July 12, 2020
Reading time: 2 minutes

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

7
SHARES
 

An ice-free Arctic summer will bring surging ocean swells to northern seas by 2080—meaning community-battering coastal waves and six-metre mid-ocean monsters that will menace ship traffic.

Reporting on research from Environment and Climate Change Canada that was published last week in the Journal of Geophysical Research, the Globe and Mail writes that such an increase in summer wave action will particularly threaten coastal communities in Canada’s western Arctic and Greenland’s east coast.

Already fighting a rearguard action against melting permafrost that is causing homes and sacred burial sites to fall into the sea, villages like Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories will increasingly need to defend themselves against an ocean that roils ashore even on calm days. The Canadian researchers also found that “floods and other extreme events that currently occur about once every 20 years could show up every two to five years,” reports the Globe.

Just how much increased erosion will affect coastal Arctic communities as summer sea ice vanishes is an under-researched question that climate scientist Mercè Casas-Prat and ocean wave specialist Xiaolan Wang sought to answer with the study.

“The pair looked at the heights and periods of waves found in the Arctic Ocean between 1979 and 2005 and then used climate models to estimate how much those characteristics are likely to change,” writes the Globe. To eliminate uncertainty, Casas-Prat and Wang also ran their projections through five climate models.

“Some of the general patterns were expected, but seeing how much it will increase is a bit surprising—I would say alarming,” said Casas-Prat. More open sea water means more surface area, called “fetch”, for wave-generating winds to move across and act upon. The weight of sea ice would once have acted to supress those waves—“particularly during the fall when Arctic seas are at their stormiest,” explains the Globe. But as that ice melts, there will be little left to subdue the waves and protect the coastline.

Such changes also bode ill for the commercial ships that are expected to traverse Arctic waters in increasing numbers as the climate warms and the sea ice vanishes, Casas-Prat warned.

While the new study did not take into account the possible mitigating impacts of the broad continental shelf that pushes out from Alaska’s north coast, nor the possibility that increasing wave action will actually mean an ice-free Arctic summer “well before 2080,” physical oceanographer Li Erickson of the U.S. Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, California lauded the new study as a significant addition to the complex science of Arctic sea ice loss. “It’s really a step forward,” she said.



in Air & Marine, Arctic & Antarctica, Canada, First Peoples, Ice Loss & Sea Level Rise, International Agencies & Studies, Severe Storms & Flooding

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Wikimedia Commons
Oil & Gas

BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says

July 4, 2022
117
EdmondMeinfelder/flickr
Environmental Justice

Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History

July 4, 2022
35
opinion polling gender green recovery climate action
Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion

Conservative Women Far More Likely Than Men to Support Green Transition, EcoAnalytics Research Finds

July 4, 2022
80

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

angela n./flickr

‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation

July 4, 2022
118
Wikimedia Commons

BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says

July 4, 2022
117
U.S. Navy/picryl

Montreal to Host New NATO Climate Centre as Military Analyst Confronts Global ‘Hyperthreat’

July 4, 2022
81
opinion polling gender green recovery climate action

Conservative Women Far More Likely Than Men to Support Green Transition, EcoAnalytics Research Finds

July 4, 2022
80
Maurits90/Wikimedia Commons

San Francisco Commuter Train Derailed by Scorching Track Temperatures, Extreme Heat

July 4, 2022
49
EdmondMeinfelder/flickr

Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History

July 4, 2022
35

Recent Posts

Adrian Grycuk/Wikimedia Commons

Youth Climate Case Moves to Top Tribunal in European Court

July 4, 2022
34
Seci/wikimedia commons

Saudi Aramco Talks Net-Zero, Plans to Boost Production Through 2035

July 4, 2022
21
Keith Weller/Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Methane Plan Gives Big Ag a Free Pass

July 4, 2022
28
Fadi Hage/wikimedia commons

Indoor Farming Revolution Comes with Significant Carbon Cost

July 4, 2022
37
Mont SUTTON snow terrain

Southern Quebec Towns Scramble for Solutions as Water Sources Dwindle

July 4, 2022
37
Pxhere

Marine Stewardship Figures Prominently in Latest Project Drawdown List

July 4, 2022
24
Next Post
Canadian Underwriter/ Twitter @CdnUnderwriter

Alberta Storm Sends Hailstones the Size of Tennis Balls at 80-100 Kilometres Per Hour

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}