Science spotlights: Difference between revisions
No edit summary |
|||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
= Science spotlights = | = Science spotlights = | ||
__TOC__ | __TOC__ | ||
== | ==Boom-and-bust cycles of barrier island retreat== | ||
<p align="right"><font color="gray">''Model highlighted: December 2010 - January 2011''</font></p> | |||
{|cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" style="color:white" width="310" | {|cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" style="color:white" width="310" | ||
|bgcolor="gray"|[[image: | |bgcolor="gray"|[[image:Galveston_Ike.png|300px|center|link=]] | ||
|- | |- | ||
|bgcolor="gray" align="left"| | |bgcolor="gray" align="left"| Galveston Barrier Island, on September 9. Ike made its final landfall near Galveston, Texas. Galveston experienced a bust after a major 1900 storm, but recovered as a tourist resort from the 1930’s onwards. It remains vulnerable today. | ||
|} | |} | ||
Barrier Islands, the low-lying sandy strips separated from the coast by a lagoon, are a favorite location to built beach resorts. Whereas a natural barrier system would steadily migrate with sea-level rise, barriers evolution is now dynamically coupled to human action to prevent storm erosion. CSDMS scientist Dylan McNamara, currently at the University of North Carolina, has been on the forefront of coupled modeling of barrier island physical processes and human factors such as hazard mitigation driven by market development.<BR> | |||
McNamara’s model shows that barrier island are maintained at unnaturally low elevations and that this situation filters out the frequent small responses to storm events, but that the inherently instability creates longterm boom-and–bust cycles of barrier island retreat. | |||
'''References''' | |||
Revision as of 12:28, 24 November 2010
Science spotlights
Boom-and-bust cycles of barrier island retreat
Model highlighted: December 2010 - January 2011
 |
| Galveston Barrier Island, on September 9. Ike made its final landfall near Galveston, Texas. Galveston experienced a bust after a major 1900 storm, but recovered as a tourist resort from the 1930’s onwards. It remains vulnerable today. |
Barrier Islands, the low-lying sandy strips separated from the coast by a lagoon, are a favorite location to built beach resorts. Whereas a natural barrier system would steadily migrate with sea-level rise, barriers evolution is now dynamically coupled to human action to prevent storm erosion. CSDMS scientist Dylan McNamara, currently at the University of North Carolina, has been on the forefront of coupled modeling of barrier island physical processes and human factors such as hazard mitigation driven by market development.
McNamara’s model shows that barrier island are maintained at unnaturally low elevations and that this situation filters out the frequent small responses to storm events, but that the inherently instability creates longterm boom-and–bust cycles of barrier island retreat.
References
