Clarence Coast whistles in the dark over climate change

The Daily Examiner yesterday assured the world that coastal sand erosion caused by king tides and big swells was a case of "relax, it's nature in action".

The combination of king tides and big swells this year have stripped sand from beaches, exposing rocks that have been buried for decades, and eroded sand dunes.
Affected beaches include the Angourie and Brooms Head back beaches and Spookys....
At Spookys Beach a large rock shelf has been exposed for the second time this year, revealing hundreds of rocks that would usually be covered in metres of sand.
John's mother, Dianne Webber, said in 27 years she had only seen the rock shelf as exposed as it was in January a handful of times.
"The sand did come back a couple of months ago, but now it's gone again," she said.
Mrs Webber said the sand was always shifting and she had faith it would return.
Further down the coast at Brooms Head, Daphne Giese has also witnessed decades of sand movement and erosion.
Mrs Giese said the back beach had a lot of sand on it and other parts of the main beach continued to be eroded.
She said 40 years ago they used to take their kids camping between the Caretaker's Cottage and the Bluff.
"You can't even camp there now because it's gone," Mrs Giese said.
"With the weather being so unpredictable you never know what the future could bring.
"But right now it looks beautiful out there," she said looking out her window at the ocean.

Meanwhile The Sydney Morning Herald told us yesterday that:

OCEANS have heated up much more rapidly in the past four decades from global warming than scientists had thought.
An Australian and American research team found that between 1961 and 2003 the rate of warming of the upper ocean layers was about 50 per cent higher than was estimated in last year's report by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
A CSIRO scientist, Catia Domingues, of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, said her team's finding helped solve a big problem for climate researchers.
They had been unable to fully explain why sea levels had risen so rapidly in this period, but this could now be largely attributed to the expansion of the warming oceans. "For the first time we can provide a reasonable account of the processes causing the rate of global sea-level rise over the past four decades," Dr Domingues said.
Sea levels rose about 1.6 millimetres a year between 1961 and 2003.

It doesn't take a genius to see that although Clarence Coast ocean processes are 'natural', it doesn't rule out the possibility that an increase in the number and strength of very high tides and change in wave action due to climate change may have begun to be felt.