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I feel like people saying 'who cares' haven't been looking. And also like affected places aren't crying loud enough. I was driving through Daytona earlier thi

by axaxs 6y ago

I feel like people saying 'who cares' haven't been looking. And also like affected places aren't crying loud enough. I was driving through Daytona earlier this year, and stopped just to see their coast. It was gone. The wooden steps leading down to the non-existent beach were half covered. That is, you couldn't even get to the bottom of the stairs. This is a beach people used to park on.

kortilla 6y ago
Coastal erosion is not the same thing as sea level rise. Sea level rise can’t account for that drastic of a change.
- axaxs 6y ago
  I feel like too many people report 'facts' without experience. I'm reporting experience without 'facts'. Maybe you're right, I just wanted to give a real life account from a low lying area.
  - beaner 6y ago
    Well that doesn't really help. If the reason is coastal erosion and not sea level rise, then you're not saying something that's relevant to the point.
    - axaxs 6y ago
      I don't mean to be anti-science, I'm just reporting what I saw with my own eyes. And it wasn't just Daytona. I saw a fisherman in Indian River County standing on what had to be 2 foot of beach. Erosion happens, but why is the water so high to even erode it?
      - dx87 6y ago
        Water doesn't have to be high to erode the shore. It'll slowly sink into the water as the lower ground is washed away, regardless of whether the water level is rising.
- conception 6y ago
  But coastal erosion accelerates as sea level rises.
pengaru 6y ago
When the sun and moon are aligned in syzygy the high tide is substantially higher than the rest of the year. Have you confirmed this didn't just happen to be a very high tide?
- axaxs 6y ago
  I did not. Then again, I have trouble believing that a public park would build a stairway that led into the ocean, even during high tide. That said, this is completely observational.
  - pengaru 6y ago
    Search for "king tide", it's a relatively exceptional event and South Florida infrastructure is notorious for flooding during them. When you build static stairs to a beach, you build them to access the beach under the prevailing conditions for most of the year. This leads to submerged stairs during exceptional king tides, unless you want to make an articulated ramp to a floating dock. Guess which one costs more to build and replace every hurricane season. If you build stairs to simply stop at the height of the highest king tide, you'll have a hazardous drop to the beach under normal conditions. Do you recall what month it was?
giardini 6y ago
Beaches are constantly being worn back: the sea advances and the shoreline retreats. Trying to build structures on a beach is a costly battle that cannot be won.
- axaxs 6y ago
  Please explain this logic. I'm not being facetious, but if that's just what happens over thousands or millions of years, why is there any coastline left at all?
  - geographaway 6y ago
    Plate tectonics. It's a broad area of study, but tl;dr, the planet's landmasses move and rise/fall independently of above-ground forces like erosion.
  - giardini 6y ago
    b/c new land is constantly being created by the clash of the tectonic plates and by upwelling of volcanic activity. Once all geological activity ceases (several billions of years in the future) then land might eventually erode away and the Earth's surface might briefly be covered completely with water. However, eventually all water will escape the planet's gravitational field and Earth will become, like Mars, a dead planet. See "Here's What'll Happen When Plate Tectonics Grinds to a Halt": https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/08/news-happens-plate-tectonics-end-earth-mountains-volcanoes-geology/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/08/news-happ...
  - rckoepke 6y ago
    You brought up Daytona. Florida's an interesting case where discussions of plate tectonics may be off the mark. Seems like it was formed mainly by deposition of seashells, shellfish, corals and sand and clay over the past 30 million years.[0] Looks like water levels were higher over most of that time period (p.71), so sea life could exist there and steadily build up a mineral base over time. It's also been much lower recently. Over the past 18,000 years sea level has risen 120m[1]. p. 71 in that book shows more detail for sea level over the past 5 million years than the wikipedia link. Here are some color renderings of what florida probably looked like from LEO over the past 40 million years[2] It seems that in places where magma is not pushing up new continental landmass (e.g. Florida), new land is created by sedimentation only underwater, while water levels are high. Then it's exposed when water levels recede, but when water levels rise again, that land is eroded and reclaimed until it is completely underwater, at which point it may grow again if there is an abundance of shellfish and coral. Right now we seem to be at the "rising sealevel, quickly-eroding shoreline" part of the cycle, which is inconvenient for human development. 0: http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=The+Geology+of+the+Everglades+and+Adjacent+Areas http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=The+Geology+of+the+Ever... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_sea_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_sea_level 2: https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/teachers/lessonplans/Material_1_Florida-paleo-geography-maps-4.pdf https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/teachers/lessonplans/Mate...

by axaxs 6y ago

kortilla 6y ago

Coastal erosion is not the same thing as sea level rise. Sea level rise can’t account for that drastic of a change.

axaxs 6y ago
I feel like too many people report 'facts' without experience. I'm reporting experience without 'facts'. Maybe you're right, I just wanted to give a real life account from a low lying area.
- beaner 6y ago
  Well that doesn't really help. If the reason is coastal erosion and not sea level rise, then you're not saying something that's relevant to the point.
  - axaxs 6y ago
    I don't mean to be anti-science, I'm just reporting what I saw with my own eyes. And it wasn't just Daytona. I saw a fisherman in Indian River County standing on what had to be 2 foot of beach. Erosion happens, but why is the water so high to even erode it?
    - dx87 6y ago
      Water doesn't have to be high to erode the shore. It'll slowly sink into the water as the lower ground is washed away, regardless of whether the water level is rising.
conception 6y ago
But coastal erosion accelerates as sea level rises.

pengaru 6y ago

When the sun and moon are aligned in syzygy the high tide is substantially higher than the rest of the year. Have you confirmed this didn't just happen to be a very high tide?

axaxs 6y ago
I did not. Then again, I have trouble believing that a public park would build a stairway that led into the ocean, even during high tide. That said, this is completely observational.
- pengaru 6y ago
  Search for "king tide", it's a relatively exceptional event and South Florida infrastructure is notorious for flooding during them. When you build static stairs to a beach, you build them to access the beach under the prevailing conditions for most of the year. This leads to submerged stairs during exceptional king tides, unless you want to make an articulated ramp to a floating dock. Guess which one costs more to build and replace every hurricane season. If you build stairs to simply stop at the height of the highest king tide, you'll have a hazardous drop to the beach under normal conditions. Do you recall what month it was?

giardini 6y ago

Beaches are constantly being worn back: the sea advances and the shoreline retreats. Trying to build structures on a beach is a costly battle that cannot be won.

axaxs 6y ago
Please explain this logic. I'm not being facetious, but if that's just what happens over thousands or millions of years, why is there any coastline left at all?
- geographaway 6y ago
  Plate tectonics. It's a broad area of study, but tl;dr, the planet's landmasses move and rise/fall independently of above-ground forces like erosion.
- giardini 6y ago
  b/c new land is constantly being created by the clash of the tectonic plates and by upwelling of volcanic activity. Once all geological activity ceases (several billions of years in the future) then land might eventually erode away and the Earth's surface might briefly be covered completely with water. However, eventually all water will escape the planet's gravitational field and Earth will become, like Mars, a dead planet. See "Here's What'll Happen When Plate Tectonics Grinds to a Halt": https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/08/news-happens-plate-tectonics-end-earth-mountains-volcanoes-geology/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/08/news-happ...
- rckoepke 6y ago
  You brought up Daytona. Florida's an interesting case where discussions of plate tectonics may be off the mark. Seems like it was formed mainly by deposition of seashells, shellfish, corals and sand and clay over the past 30 million years.[0] Looks like water levels were higher over most of that time period (p.71), so sea life could exist there and steadily build up a mineral base over time. It's also been much lower recently. Over the past 18,000 years sea level has risen 120m[1]. p. 71 in that book shows more detail for sea level over the past 5 million years than the wikipedia link. Here are some color renderings of what florida probably looked like from LEO over the past 40 million years[2] It seems that in places where magma is not pushing up new continental landmass (e.g. Florida), new land is created by sedimentation only underwater, while water levels are high. Then it's exposed when water levels recede, but when water levels rise again, that land is eroded and reclaimed until it is completely underwater, at which point it may grow again if there is an abundance of shellfish and coral. Right now we seem to be at the "rising sealevel, quickly-eroding shoreline" part of the cycle, which is inconvenient for human development. 0: http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=The+Geology+of+the+Everglades+and+Adjacent+Areas http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=The+Geology+of+the+Ever... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_sea_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_sea_level 2: https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/teachers/lessonplans/Material_1_Florida-paleo-geography-maps-4.pdf https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/teachers/lessonplans/Mate...