Environmental signal shredding on sandy coastlines
How storm events contribute to long-term shoreline change over decades to centuries remains an open question in coastal research. Sand and gravel coasts exhibit remarkable resilience to event-driven disturbances, and, in settings where sea level is rising, shorelines retain almost no detailed inform...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Earth surface dynamics 2019-01, Vol.7 (1), p.77-86 |
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Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | How storm events contribute to long-term shoreline change over
decades to centuries remains an open question in coastal research. Sand and
gravel coasts exhibit remarkable resilience to event-driven disturbances,
and, in settings where sea level is rising, shorelines retain almost no
detailed information about their own past positions. Here, we use a
high-frequency, multi-decadal observational record of shoreline position to
demonstrate quantitative indications of morphodynamic turbulence – “signal
shredding” – in a sandy beach system. We find that, much as in other dynamic
sedimentary systems, processes of sediment transport that affect shoreline
position at relatively short timescales may obscure or erase evidence of
external forcing. This suggests that the physical effects of annual (or
intra-annual) forcing events, including major storms, may convey less about
the dynamics of long-term shoreline change – and vice versa – than coastal
researchers might wish. |
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ISSN: | 2196-632X 2196-6311 2196-632X |
DOI: | 10.5194/esurf-7-77-2019 |