Environmental signal shredding on sandy coastlines
Environmental signal shredding on sandy coastlines
How storm events contribute to long-term shoreline change over decades to centuries remains an open question in coastal research. Sand and gravel coasts exhibit remarkable resilience to event-driven disturbances, and, in settings where sea level is rising, shorelines retain almost no detailed information about their own past positions. Here, we use a high-frequency, multi-decadal observational record of shoreline position to demonstrate quantitative indications of morphodynamic turbulence – “signal shredding” – in a sandy beach system. We find that, much as in other dynamic sedimentary systems, processes of sediment transport that affect shoreline position at relatively short timescales may obscure or erase evidence of external forcing. This suggests that the physical effects of annual (or intra-annual) forcing events, including major storms, may convey less about the dynamics of long-term shoreline change – and vice versa – than coastal researchers might wish.
77-86
Lazarus, Eli
642a3cdb-0d25-48b1-8ab8-8d1d72daca6e
Harley, Mitchell D
5fce3d77-33a1-4f99-9d8a-35dc42a79536
Blenkinsopp, Chris E
a14aa4a4-1899-4dea-b08b-0ceb97d4d41d
Turner, Ian L
7590469e-0272-43b5-9bbd-570d95d4be14
18 January 2019
Lazarus, Eli
642a3cdb-0d25-48b1-8ab8-8d1d72daca6e
Harley, Mitchell D
5fce3d77-33a1-4f99-9d8a-35dc42a79536
Blenkinsopp, Chris E
a14aa4a4-1899-4dea-b08b-0ceb97d4d41d
Turner, Ian L
7590469e-0272-43b5-9bbd-570d95d4be14
Lazarus, Eli, Harley, Mitchell D, Blenkinsopp, Chris E and Turner, Ian L
(2019)
Environmental signal shredding on sandy coastlines.
Earth Surface Dynamics, 7, .
(doi:10.5194/esurf-7-77-2019).
Abstract
How storm events contribute to long-term shoreline change over decades to centuries remains an open question in coastal research. Sand and gravel coasts exhibit remarkable resilience to event-driven disturbances, and, in settings where sea level is rising, shorelines retain almost no detailed information about their own past positions. Here, we use a high-frequency, multi-decadal observational record of shoreline position to demonstrate quantitative indications of morphodynamic turbulence – “signal shredding” – in a sandy beach system. We find that, much as in other dynamic sedimentary systems, processes of sediment transport that affect shoreline position at relatively short timescales may obscure or erase evidence of external forcing. This suggests that the physical effects of annual (or intra-annual) forcing events, including major storms, may convey less about the dynamics of long-term shoreline change – and vice versa – than coastal researchers might wish.
Text
esurf-7-77-2019
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Accepted/In Press date: 7 January 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 18 January 2019
Published date: 18 January 2019
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 427694
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/427694
ISSN: 2196-6311
PURE UUID: 5670547b-b938-4e5c-8593-bb17473ce9d9
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Date deposited: 25 Jan 2019 17:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:28
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Author:
Mitchell D Harley
Author:
Chris E Blenkinsopp
Author:
Ian L Turner
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