Ocean Currents Affect Coastal Climates

The state of Florida is the region most susceptible to the effects of global warming in this country, according to scientists. Sea-level rise alone threatens thirty percent of the state’s beaches over the next 85 years. Climate change and global warming refer to the body of scientific evidence showing that the earth’s environment is warming due to human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. It is accepted science all over the world. Climate change in Florida has many effects such as the increase of our sea level and global warming this issue will cause a dramatic change in 2050.

There are many areas in Tampa that will be unfortunately underwater. As we saw with the heavy rains in late 2015, the most vital areas such as Westshore Ave, South Tampa, Bayshore Ave, and even Downtown had major flooding causing delays in traffic and safety anxieties. While the flooding only lasted a few days, the event brought attention to the Tampa’s faulty infrastructure and drainage systems. An alarming thought is how Tampa will be able to protect itself from a storm or the rising sea levels if the drainage systems are inadequate. The Tampa Bay area is due for a natural disaster any day now; the coastal area is highly vulnerable. According to Sara Kerr, “One place that we have to look carefully at is Tampa where there is a huge concentration at risk from a storm surge, but there hasn’t been an event for 150 years and so the city is fairly complacent about its risk” (2015). A possible catastrophe can pose as an environmental challenge in Tampa Bay as the highly populous areas will not be able to withstand rising sea levels that will occur.

This is not just an architectural design and the fashion, but because of the fact that the developers know that the land is being swallowed by the sea. More and more houses, hotels, shops and restaurants have decks and some piers that lead into and over the water. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection even has courses for those in construction to acknowledge the erosion and increase the proper design, construction and maintenance of erosion and sediment control. The beaches, whether sandy or rocky are the buffers that keep the sea at bay from the land behind enemy lines. They are nature’s way of saving all the people and their livelihoods from being swept away into the deep blue yonder. When waves crash into the beach it carries sediment with it and deposits such sediment. The alternative is that when a wave recedes back into the ocean it carries that sediment back to sea. This is usually done at an unequal rate, and leads to coastal erosion. In fact, coastal erosion is one of the reasons we have so many beautiful beaches around the world due to their unique shape. Long shore currents move water in a parallel direction of the shoreline, carrying the sand with it. But as we continue to build piers, docks, sea walls, and jetties

Over the past several million years sea level has fluctuated considerably higher and lower than present levels. With these fluctuations the shoreline has shifted inland and further out, onto the continental shelf, than the present shorelines. The Northern Gulf of Mexico has followed the general path of global sea level during recent geologic time including the time since the last glacial maximum. During the last glacial maximum, 20,000 years ago, the sea level dropped approximately 100m below the present level and the shoreline extended 100km onto the shelf in some locations (Donoghue, 2011). Since the last glacial maximum the U.S. coast of the Gulf of Mexico has seen a rise in sea level at a rate exceeding those seen at any other time. The rate of overall sea level rise since the last glacial maximum is 6mm a year with some periods of rise in excess of 40mm a year. The rate has slowed and stabilized over the last 6,000 years and this has allowed ecosystems and

On June 19th, my classmates and I had field trip for Oceanography Lab (OCN 101) class with Professor Ocean Matt Horrigan. We went to Corte Madera Salt Marsh, which is located 12 miles North of San Francisco, to examine how rising and falling of tide effect on

People living in Miami are in the face of danger, and for the most part they are not aware of it. Due to high population, Miami is the fourth largest city to become affected by sea level rise. (Ankum et al.) In the next 32-50 years, sea level is expected to rise by as much as two feet. (Ankum et al.) This two-foot rise will have detrimental effects on the urban settings of Miami. The amount of soil erosion that is undergoing at our beaches will greatly increase if a two-foot rise occurs. At a four-foot rise, road connectivity would begin to become affected. At a six-foot rise, Southern Florida would no longer be habitable as it would, for the most part, be underwater. Not much is being invested in mitigation efforts, most of what is being done are short term solutions. Instead of coming up with ideas to prevent and try to slow down the effects of climate change on our environment, we are focusing on ideas such as building up a sea wall, relocating power plants, and redesigning structures.

Here is why researchers have focused in on South Florida. More than 2.4 million people and 1.3 million homes are within 4 feet of the local high-tide line, and according to Climate Central. They blame the rising ocean waters on global warming, but many others like the indigenous people of Canada and?? Believe that that earth has tilted or “wobbled “on its axis.

Many communities are suffering due to coastal erosion. One example is the village of Cocodrie, LA in Terrebonne Parish. This village’s small population and its 220 residential and commercial buildings are surrounded by marshes. In Cocodrie, there is no barrier against hurricanes. Local marinas play host to recreational and commercial fishing, and The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium is located in Cocodrie. This facility of around 100,000 square ft houses laboratories, classrooms, and a research center. Infrastructure that will be affected by coastal erosion includes paved highway, dirt roads, a bridge, water supply systems, and natural gas lines. By 2050, Cocodrie will be surrounded by open water as the marshlands around the village give way to rising sea levels. Another community affected by this issue is Yscloskey, LA in St. Bernard Parish. The most important part of the economy here is fishing, and highways link the parish to New Orleans fishing communities. The Yscloskey area lies outside of the protective levees and is quite vulnerable to storms. Though losses in Yscloskey are not predicted to be as great as those in Cocodrie, a 16 percent loss by 2050 leaves the infrastructure of Yscloskey even more vulnerable (Coast 2050, 1998, p. 64-66). Local residents in these areas are watching the land disappear along with the beachfronts and Cyprus swamps that were on that land (Marshall, 2014).

The changes to the coastline have affected the sustainability of the region. The loss of wetlands and other natural barriers have eliminated protection from higher and faster moving storm surges. New Orleans and other regions of the Louisiana deltaic plane could not be protected without proper account of the tremendous change that occurred to Louisiana's coastal landscape (IPET).

The intensity, frequency, and duration of North Atlantic hurricanes, as well as the frequency of category 4 and 5 hurricanes, have all increased since the early 1980s (Bell 2012). The increase in hurricanes can be linked to higher sea surface temperatures caused by multiple outside sources. Human induced emissions of heat-trapping gases and particulate pollution are two of the possible sources that are affecting the sea surface temperature. Humans are the main contributor contributing to climate change and global warming, but most seem not to care. Not only is the amount of hurricanes increasing, but heat waves are increasing and intensifying in some western parts of the country. Heat waves have become more frequent across The United States in recent decades. Western regions are setting records for numbers of heat waves and droughts in the 2000s. Data collected suggests that the droughts over the last decade in the West represent the driest conditions in the last 800 years (Vose 2005). With varying weather all over the country, the real estate market is beginning to be affected as well. Popular ski capitals will no longer have their icy slopes and eventually the popular beaches will be too hot to visit or will not have any beach left, causing drops in vacation rentals and permanent housing

Earth’s atmosphere is surrounded by thin layers of gasses, 78% is made of nitrogen, 21% is made up of oxygen, 0.4% orgon, and 0.03% is made up of carbon dioxide. Wildfires, Earthquakes, Floods, Tsunamis, Landslides and Coastal Changes are natural hazards in different California regions. California is interconnected water systems serves over 30 million people irrigates over 5,680,000 acres of farmland.

Climate change has progressively become more problematic for coastal societies in recent history as a result of elevated greenhouse gas emission levels across the planet. Increases in sea level and sea surface temperature, as well as atmospheric pressure accretion, are unnatural effects directly linked to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) release into the atmosphere. Some of the sources of these increases have come from the greater use of coal and gasoline for industrial and transportation purposes. Hurricanes (tropical cyclones), most common in the North Atlantic region, have intensified due to this “global warming”. But occurrences of such events are predicted to diminish (Emanuel, 2011). Hurricanes are expected to form less frequently in the North Atlantic, but they will become more intense and powerful over time. As high intensity hurricanes become more common events along the densely populated eastern coast of the United States, more resilient engineering solutions will need to be implemented by current generations to reduce their destructive impact.

he issue of coastal resilience and sea level rise are issues of dire importance in the Tidewater area of Virginia. Recent events in the Gulf Coast area, which were devastated by Hurricane Harvey, prove the importance of these pressing issues in the coming years. Because of the Tidewater region’s proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, it the one of the most susceptible areas threatened by recent sea level rise, with most of the region lying less than fifteen feet above sea level(Weeks 2012). “…Low-lying neighborhoods flood regularly when heavy rains combine with high tides, swamping storm-water systems.” This regular flooding coupled with rise in sea level can and will become an issue if not seriously addressed by the local, state, and federal

The combination of these and other trends was an estimated average sea-level increase of 1.5mm per year between 1961 and 2003, which reached 2.4mm per year in the decade from 1993 to 2003. The decades prior to this trend showed only minor fluctuations in sea-level, suggesting that the current rate exceeds what could be caused by natural cycles. While the exact impact of rising oceans is difficult to determine, it is certain that the consequences will include some degree of flooding, integration of salt water into water tables, and a loss of land due to coastal erosion and submersion.6

Answer the following questions using complete sentences. Each question is worth 4 points. 1. Describe four factors that influence ocean currents. Four factors that influence ocean currents are the Coriolis Effect, the climate, upwellings, and water density.