Sand Dollars: NJ’s Costly Beach Replenishment Cycle Faces Climate-Change Challenge

njspotlightnews.org

Sea level rise, combined with the slight but steady subsidence of the coastal plain upon which southern New Jersey rests, has for years been the climate-change bogeyman most often blamed for the staggeringly fast erasure of equally as staggering amounts of sand from the Atlantic shoreline. While sea level rise does play a role — the Atlantic City tide gauge shows over 18 inches of rise since 1910, a foot of which has occurred since 1950 — more recently, climate change’s impact on localized weather events has been an increasing concern.