Rapid Alaskan Erosion (broadcast Friday, March 27th, 2009)

A cabin along the Arctic Alaska coastline was recently washed into the ocean because the bluff it was sitting on top of was eroded away. Courtesy of Benjamin Jones, USGS

A 40-mile stretch of Alaskan coastline along the Beaufort Sea is eroding at a rate of 45 feet per year. That's double the erosion rate of just a few years ago. We'll talk with a researcher studying the rapid crumbling of the strip of coastline. A study describing the work was recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. Though the team is not yet ready to definitively pin the cause of the increased erosion rate on any one factor, changing conditions such as declining sea ice extent, increasing summertime sea-surface temperature, rising sea level, and increases in storm power may have all contributed to the coastal decline.

Guests

Christopher Arp
Research Ecologist
U.S. Geological Survey, Alaska Science Center
Anchorage, Alaska

Related Links

AGU: Erosion rates double along portion of Alaska’s coast

Segment produced by:Flora Lichtman

Image: USGS researcher Benjamin Jones measures erosion along a part of Alaska''s Arctic coast. On the right side of the photo is an example of a collapsed block of ice-rich permafrost.
Courtesy of Christopher Arp, USGS