Baked Alaska
Time-lapse video shows climate change eroding coastline
Even to believers, the long-term effects of climate change can seem like an abstraction. Not so in Alaska: Global warming exacts a daily, measurable toll on the region’s weather, wildlife, and even physical landmass. Warming oceans are literally carving the northern coastlines away — sometimes by as much as 100 feet a year.
Seeing is believing: Climate scientists from the University of Colorado took photos of a section of Alaska’s Beaufort Coast every two hours for a month. When the pictures are sequenced together as a time-lapsed film, the results are stunning:
Whoah. Some Inuit communities actually live on the coast and have to worry about their homes dropping into the sea. It’s probably too late to reclaim Alaska’s disappearing coastline, but maybe we can stave off the ocean before it swallows other oceanside communities. Like, say, Florida.
— Ted Alvarez