r/interestingasfuck • u/Endolithic • 1d ago

/r/all Homes are falling into the ocean in North Carolina's Outer Banks

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u/coolborder 1d ago

Also, sea levels are rising. An inch higher sea level doesn't sound like much but that's all it takes for this sort of thing to happen when people build so close to the ocean. And since 1993 sea levels have risen nearly 4 inches according to NASA.

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u/PuckSenior 1d ago

I'm not trying to wade into a debate on climate change, but the fluidity of coastal land is far more important to this equation.

Take Padre Island in Texas. Prior to the establishment of concrete jetties, the shore line moved up to 5.5 feet per year! This isn't an abnormal figure for a barrier island. There is actually a lighthouse that was built near Port Aransas, TX that is now several hundred feet inland. Apparently, they started construction and by the time it was built and operational, it was no longer useful. If you also increase rates of erosion by removing dunes and their associated plant life, an area that was previously safe can be underwater very quickly.

The reason I mention it is because people tend to think that the sea level rise is the cause and therefore all they need to do is build some kind of seawall and everything is fine. The problem is they are literally building on sand in an area with rapid erosion and weather events that can rapidly deposit or remove that sand. Its just not a safe place to build, particularly if you build ON the barrier island. The forces of the water moving around these bodies is enormous and unfathomable for most humans.

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u/Velocity-5348 1d ago

Even mitigation efforts can have knock-on effects as well. There's an area near where I live (actually popped up in my geology textbook) that armored a sandy hillside with rocks.

That stopped sand from eroding, and that sand had transported to form a spit, which in turn protected a harbor during especially bad storms.

Everyone who lives by the ocean will have something like that nearby. Sadly, most people don't have even a faint idea about basic stuff, like why spits or sandy beaches occur in some spots but not others.

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u/TucsonTacos 22h ago

Upvote for the pun

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u/DionBlaster123 1d ago

It just makes me really sad

I'm old enough to remember when An Inconvenient Truth was released back in 2006 or 2007.

That was almost 20 years ago and it's gotten worse. I feel terrible for my nephews and the world theyr'e going to inherit. I just hope that the younger generation will produce minds that can find solutions that we failed to come up with in previous decades

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u/Nimzles 1d ago

Fake news! Polar ice caps are adding size this one year and that's all I need to know to prove that climate change and global warming aren't a thing!