UAVs reveal erosion of the Arctic coast

science and technology

Climate problems are increasing each day and impacts are spreading to different regions, where severe erosion of the Arctic coasts due to climate change has been detected, up to a meter a day through unmanned drone surveys.

According to the site "phys", the storms in the Canadian Arctic storms increasing amounts of coastal ice sheets, which are exposed through the melting of sea ice during the summer.

The UAV data highlights ongoing change in the region, where the warming climate leads to longer summer seasons, and early sea ice melts, exposing the coastline to risks and providing more opportunities for storms to cause additional damage.

An international team of researchers led by the University of Edinburgh put unmanned aerial cameras to monitor part of the coast in a frozen area on Herschel Island, also known as Qikiqtaruk, off the coast of Yukon in the Canadian Arctic. Researchers identified the area seven times in 40 days In the summer of 2017.

Its findings, from photo-based computer models, showed that the coast fell by 14.5 meters during this period, sometimes more than a meter a day, and compared with surveys conducted from 1952 to 2011, showed that the erosion rate in 2017 was more than six times the long-term average of the region.