Toward a predictive model of Arctic coastal retreat in a warming climate, Beaufort Sea, Alaska

The team proposes a three-year project to develop predictive models of coastal erosion and sediment transport along the Alaskan Beaufort Sea coast. This project has three distinct but complementary goals that include monitoring and modeling: 1) to quantify the rates and drivers of shoreline retreat through the past ~50 years using retrospective analyses of remotely sensed imagery, sea surface temperatures, ground temperatures, and meteorological records; 2) to characterize the processes driving coastal change in the Arctic via comprehensive monitoring of wave and thermal energy inputs, substrate properties, and inputs of water and sediment from fluvial systems; 3) to develop both descriptive and predictive models for coastal erosion in Alaska using both simplified physical models of individual processes, and models of suites of interrelated physical processes and hydrodynamics using DELFT3D.