coastal

Australian rangers have killed an invasive "monster" cane toad discovered in the wilds of a coastal park – a warty brown specimen as long as a human arm and weighing 2.7 kilograms (6 pounds).The toad was spotted after a snake slithering across a track forced wildlife workers to stop as they were driving in Queensland's Conway National Park, the state government said."I reached down and grabbed the cane toad and couldn't believe how big and heavy it was," ranger Kylee Gray said, describing how she discovered the amphibian…

SANTA CRUZ —  The latest in a series of atmospheric river storms pummeled Northern California on Thursday, toppling trees, battering the coastline and swelling rivers and streams into furious torrents as residents braced for more intense weather set to arrive in the near future.Storms over the last week have killed at least six people, including three whose bodies were found in or near submerged cars after a levee broke near Sacramento. A toddler was killed when a tree crashed into a residence in Sonoma County.While…

Against the ravaging seas, Quebec's coastal communities have learned through bitter experience that the way to advance against climate change is to retreat.Over the past decade, civilization has been pulled back from the water's edge where possible along the eastern stretch of the Gaspé Peninsula where coastline is particularly vulnerable to erosion. Defences erected against the sea ages ago have been dismantled, rock by rock, concrete chunk by chunk.Forillon National Park, nearly 100 kilometres from Percé, removed a road…

A coupled model (right) next to a linked model (left). Whereas on a linked model information about the river system is fed into the ocean model, the coupled model allows models of the river system and the ocean to provide feedback to each other, more accurately representing flooding conditions. Credit: Z. George Xue, LSU When Hurricane Florence hit the coast of North Carolina as a Category 1 storm in 2018, it set new records for…

Latitudinal distribution of α for the LSAT of CRUTEM5 and 60 CMIP6 models. The change in the latitudinal range of the grids in the figure is consistent with that in the CRUTEM5 dataset, and the α value for each grid is the average α at this latitude. Credit: Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.aosl.2022.100291 General circulation models play an important role in researching and predicting climate…

Accumulation of waste on the shore of the La Virgen marsh in Cartagena, Colombia. Credit: University of Barcelona Globally, the coastal lagoons of Lagos (Nigeria), Sakumo (Ghana) and Bizerte (Tunisia)—close to large urban centers and without waste and sewage treatment systems—are among the water ecosystems most affected by microplastic pollution. However, the highest concentrations of microplastics have been detected in Barnes…

Credit: Sophie Day, Author provided A record storm surge in 1953 devastated much of eastern England's coast, prompting prolific investment in concrete sea walls, wooden groins and other engineered structures designed to protect the coastline from erosion. These measures brought a reassuring sense of permanence for people in previously risky locations. Houses atop sandy cliffs and tucked behind or among sand dunes went from…

A new paper published in the journal Oceanography speculates future global food production problems could be solved by growing protein-dense microalgae in coastal aquaculture farms. The modeling boldly projects 100% of global protein demands could be provided by marine microalgae in 2050.Over the next 35 years the world’s population is projected to reach 10 billion people. To feed billions more people there will need to be significant changes to global food production systems. Charles Greene, from the department of earth…

Study site locations in and near Nags Head, North Carolina, U.S. Credit: M. O'Driscoll Sea-level rise and big storms are hammering coastal communities, causing increased flooding and land loss, saltwater intrusion, wetland loss/change, and impacts to local infrastructure.…

Coastlines are among Earth's most dynamic environments. Tidal action, river sediment deposition, erosion, decomposition of organic matter, and more combine to create constantly evolving landscapes. These processes tend to produce loose agglomerations of sedimentary…