Can Seawalls Save Us? – the New Yorker

Sea wall drains, Prachuap Bay, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand (by Troup Dresser CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

Pacifica, California, just south of San Francisco, is the kind of beachfront community that longtime residents compare to Heaven…Pacifica embodies one of the central disagreements about rising seas. Fight or flight? Stay or go? Flight can seem unimaginable. But, if we try to fight the ocean with rock and concrete, it will cost us—and it may not work…

West Papua, Indonesia from the Air – Planet Labs PBC

West Papua, Indonesia from the air: Mangrove forests are a natural fortification against storm surges (© Planet Labs PBC, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Medium).

If every image tells a story, high resolution satellite imagery of the earth is the ultimate treasure trove where natural processes is the artist creating works of transcendent beauty that are at once abstract and realistic.

Research Confirms Link Between Snow Crab Decline and Marine Heatwave – NOAA Fisheries

Snow Crab detail (by NOAA Fisheries, public domain).

“During the marine heatwave, snow crabs faced a triple threat,” said lead author and Alaska Fisheries Science Center stock assessment scientist Cody Szuwalski. “Their metabolism increased, so they needed more food; their habitat was reduced so there was less area to forage; and crabs caught in our survey weighed less than usual. These conditions likely set them up for the dramatic decline we saw in 2021…”

Climate crisis costing $16m an hour in extreme weather damage, study estimates – the Guardian

The damaged metal fencing and railings along Beach Drive illustrate the power unleashed by Thursday’s storm as visitors take in the scene Friday morning © Shmuel Thaler - Santa Cruz Sentinel

The damage caused by the climate crisis through extreme weather has cost $16m (£13m) an hour for the past 20 years, according to a new estimate.

Storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts have taken many lives and destroyed swathes of property in recent decades, with global heating making the events more frequent and intense. The study is the first to calculate a global figure for the increased costs directly attributable to human-caused global heating…

Erosion Stripping Seven Mile Beach – cayman compass

Seven Mile Beach, Cayman Islands (by Brook Ward CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

The Compass recently observed the length of the beach using a drone camera to get the most up-to-date images of the impacts of the storm and ongoing erosion. It showed that some areas along the southern stretch have suffered a total loss of beach, and in at least one section, a near-5-feet-high ledge of sand has been created by the bombardment of the waves…

Littoral Drift – Lens Culture

Meghann Ripenhoff's Littoral Drift #38 2013 Unique Cyanotype (by SF Camerawork, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

Inky blues, frothy whites and occasional flecks of gold make up the color spectrum in Meghann Riepenhoff’s breathtaking camera-less cyanotypes..Littoral Drift—a geological term used to describe the transportation of sand and gravel by wind-driven waves—is Riepenhoff’s “collaboration” with the landscape and the ocean, in which she opens herself to chance and embraces the textures of nature into her working process…..