Monday, February 24, 2014

British storms 'have changed coastline forever'

Space Daily via AFP: The huge storms and powerful winds that have battered the coast of Britain in recent weeks have caused years' worth of erosion and damage, authorities said on Friday.

On some stretches of coast, the extreme weather has stripped away sand from stretches of beaches to reveal ancient forests, leaving the stumps of 6,000-year-old oaks protruding.

The National Trust, the body which manages much of Britain's most scenic coastline, said the storms have caused problems that it did not expect to have to deal with for years.

Cliffs have crumbled, beaches and sand dunes have been eroded, heavy seas have breached defences and shorelines and harbours have been damaged.

At Birling Gap on the Sussex coast, a popular tourist spot in southeast England, the speed of erosion has been "breathtaking", according to Jane Cecil, the National Trust general manager for the area....

Birling Gap, shot by Ben Gamble in 2002, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, nder the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license 

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