Open AccessComment on “On AGU's Position Statement, ‘Human Impacts on Climate’”
Author(s) -
Evans Rob
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2009eo340006
Subject(s) - assertion , shore , storm , coastal erosion , position (finance) , action (physics) , sediment , wind wave , sea level , oceanography , erosion , point (geometry) , geology , history , meteorology , geography , economics , geomorphology , mathematics , physics , computer science , geometry , finance , quantum mechanics , programming language
Regarding the Forum by Cyril Galvin ( Eos, 89 (46), 459, 2008), while I understand AGU's willingness to present both sides of the coin, as it were, I am disappointed that this Forum appeared in Eos . One major point in question is the assertion by Galvin that “nowhere on the sandy ocean shores of the world is there a beach whose erosion has been documented to be caused by sea level rise.” This point disregards the fact that coastal barrier systems have been moving landward for the last several thousand years, driven by rising sea level. Yes, the picture is complex, and yes, wave action and storms, in addition to constraints on sediment supply—many of them heavily influenced in the present day by societal actions—are also important: Some beaches will erode without rising sea level if they are starved of new sediment to replace that removed by wave‐driven, alongshore currents, and it is of course the waves that move the sediment around.