Alaska tumbling into the Sea?

[n2doc]

Erosion Rate Doubles on Stretch of Alaskan Coast
By LiveScience Staff
posted: 18 February 2009 01:10 pm ET

Most of California isn't falling into the sea yet, but big parts of Alaska are.

In a possible sign of things to come, erosion of a stretch of Alaska's coast surged in recent years to more than double the average historical rate, threatening some towns, a new study finds. The loss of land is documented in photos that show newly collapsed sections of permafrost coastline as well as decades-old artifacts that have slipped into the sea.

Scientists caution that the study does not include the entire coastline, but they said the shift might be due to declining Arctic sea ice extent, increasing summertime sea-surface temperatures, the rising sea level, and increases in storm power and corresponding wave action.

"These factors may be leading to a new era in ocean-land interactions that seem to be repositioning and reshaping the Arctic coastline," the scientists write in the Feb. 14 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

more:

http://www.livescience.com/environment/090218-alaska-coastal-erosion.html

[Blue_In_AK]

1. More here

http://www.adn.com/news/environment/story/694988.html


In July of 2007, this nearly century-old whaling boat rested along the Beaufort Sea coast near Lonely. The boat washed out to sea a few months later.



USGS researcher Benjamin Jones measures erosion along a part of Alaska's Arctic coast, looking at a collapsed block of ice-rich permafrost.


A cabin along Alaska's Arctic coastline on Elson Lagoon washed into the ocean because the bluff it was sitting on eroded away.


(USGS photos by Benjamin Jones and Christopher Arp)