Time-Lapse Video of Alaska’s Eroding Coastline

Last week, the New York Times Dot Earth blog posted a sobering video of coastline erosion in Alaska. This is no simulation – it’s a time-lapse video made from pictures taken two hours apart from late June to late July of this year.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/mv5udkIacBw" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

The scrolling text at the end says this:

Alaska’s northern coastline is eroding at rates as high as 30 meters (100 feet) per year. Climate change may be large responsible. As Arctic sea ice seasonally recedes, large regions of ocean become exposed to the sun’s energy. The seas transfer this heat to the shoreline, melting the once permanently frozen land. Meanwhile, longer open-water periods allow storms to batter the weakening coast. These feedbacks may intensify as sea ice continues to shrink. Learn more at cires.colorado.edu.

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.