Climate Change Anecdotes

[Broken_Erika]

Canada's cities are losing up to 19 days of winter​

Days above 0 C have seen dramatic increase around the world, Climate Central analysis finds​

In just the past 10 years, cities around the world, including in Canada, have lost weeks' worth of winter ski, skate and snow days each year due to climate change. They've been replaced by dozens of days of rain, melt and mud, according to a new analysis by Climate Central, a climate research and communications non-profit.

In Canada, some cities and regions that have lost more than two weeks of winter weather, including Vancouver (19 days), B.C.'s Greater Nanaimo region (18 days) and Ontario's Niagara region (15 days).

Toronto has lost 13 days, and even Montreal and Calgary — known for being cold — have lost six and five days below zero, respectively, per year.

Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at Climate Central, said these recent changes are very noticeable because snow turns to rain when the temperature rises above freezing at 0 C.

They may also be quite poignant because winter is a time for cozy holidays in many parts of the world, she added. "Those holidays are times that we remember as children and the traditions that come along with them," she said. "Seeing it warm is almost like losing some of the past."

Climate Central looked at the daily minimum temperatures in December, January and February in 901 cities and 123 countries around the world between 2014 and 2023.

It counted the change in the number of days above zero during that time period, a result of human-caused climate change driven mainly by the burning of fossil fuels.

Why some places lost so many winter days​

More than a third of the countries analyzed lost at least a week's worth of winter days during the past decade. The hardest hit — Denmark, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — each lost at least three weeks (up to 23 days) of winter days.

Dahl said there were two main reasons some countries and cities were affected more than others. Some, such as Europe (and Canada), are warming faster than the global average.

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• First Person
  Canada is winter. With our warming climate, I feel like I'm losing a part of me

Many parts of Canada, such as coastal B.C. and southern Ontario, also saw big impacts because their winter temperatures already tend to hover around 0 C.

"So it doesn't take a whole lot of climate change to kick a bunch of winter days ... above that freezing threshold," Dahl added.

Robert McLeman, director of the RinkWatch project that is tracking outdoor skating rinks in Canada for the 14th season this year, said the biggest change has been in the onset of winter. He thinks the new Climate Central analysis is a "great way for Canadians to recognize that our climate is changing."

The report didn't break down what part of the winter the days were disappearing from. But McLeman, a Wilfrid Laurier University professor who has studied historical records of rink-building, said half a century ago, people were building rinks in Southern Ontario in early December, and ski hills would have plenty of snow to operate before Christmas holidays.

Today, in mid-December, he said, "I'm looking outside at green grass right now, outside my window in Waterloo, [Ont.]."

He added that local skating rinks no longer get started until the first or second week of January.

• Analysis
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But aren't warmer winters kind of nice?​

Dahl called the loss of cold winter days a "delight-mare."

"It's nice to get a break from the freezing cold temperatures for us," she acknowledged. "But when you stop and think about why that's happening, it really does give you that sinking feeling — this is climate change happening."

And it can have many negative impacts, she added: It can cause water shortages in areas that rely on melting snow for both drinking and agriculture; allow the spread of disease-carrying pests such as ticks and mosquitoes into new areas; threaten populations of animals and plants; disrupt farming; and spoil winter recreation activities that are a part of our culture and economy, such as skating and skiing.

Sapna Sharma is a biology professor at York University who studies how ice is changing on lakes around the world.

She's found ice-free years become far more common for many lakes, leading to problems such as toxic algae blooms that follow in the summer.

But the freezing and thawing as the temperature dips above and below zero more often also weakens the ice.

"Weaker ice conditions contribute to more drownings," she said.

Connor Reeve is an ecologist postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University, who looked at the impact of winter and climate change on conservation of animals and plants during his recent PhD at Carleton University in Ottawa.

The lack of ice on the Rideau Canal during that time was a "real bummer," he recalled.

He said Climate Central's analysis "adds perspective to the changes the world is experiencing."

• Europe's cities are turning outdoor ice rinks into roller rinks. How will ours adapt?
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The loss of winter days described could impact animals in many ways, especially insects and amphibians that rely on snowpack and ice for winter shelter. "As we get these weather whiplash events, it's really going to stress out these species," he said.

While it will affect many human recreational activities such as fishing and hunting, warming winters affect many animals and plants in different ways, he said. For example, they cause less cold tolerant species to move north and push out those adapted to cooler temperatures or lead to a mismatch between co-dependent species that respond to the warming weather in different ways, such as flowers and pollinators.

Temperatures could respond quickly to emissions drop​

Dahl said the trend toward warmer temperatures will continue as long as humans continue to burn fossil fuels. Some regions will have to adapt, for example, by finding new ways to manage water supplies through the year to compensate for lost snowpack in winter.

But Dahl said the good news is that temperatures are expected to respond quite quickly once we stop emitting greenhouse gases.

"The latest science has us thinking that within about 10 years of reaching zero emissions, temperatures would would stop increasing," she said. "So, you know, even within our lifetimes we could see that change."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/lost-winter-climate-central-1.7411756

 

[Samson]

Source

 

[Birdjaguar]

The oldest animal ever found could reveal whether a crucial ocean current will collapse​

Clam shells could help scientists understand the Atlantic Ocean’s sensitive circulation system — and predict when that crucial system might catastrophically collapse.

Today at 6:00 a.m. EST

There was nothing outwardly impressive about the clam sitting on the deck of the research vessel Bjarni Sæmundsson. The dull, gray creature, dredged from the muddy bottom of the North Atlantic, was no different from the millions of mollusks caught and cooked each year for chowder. But this clam was destined for something greater than a soup pot.

The humble bivalve — nicknamed Hafrún, an Icelandic word meaning “ocean mystery” — was the longest-living individual animal ever found by scientists. For 507 years it bathed in the shifting currents off the coast of Iceland, watching the surrounding water become more or less salty, enduring the rise and fall of ocean temperatures. And as the years passed, it recorded those observations in the molecular makeup of its shell, tracking the trajectory of a changing planet from a spot no human could reach. Segmented parts of Hafrún, a 507-year-old Arctica islandica clam from Iceland that is the oldest individual animal known to science. (Gabriella Demczuk for The Washington Post)

Once it had been viewed beneath a microscope, Hafrún the clam would turn into a historian, giving researchers new insight into the mysteries of the deep sea. It would serve as a benchmark, allowing experts to make sense of changes they see in the ocean today. And it would become an oracle — helping scientists predict whether human-caused warming has pushed the Atlantic’s sensitive circulation system toward a tipping point that could devastate the modern world. Experts have long known that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC — the system of ocean currents that transports heat and salt between the Southern and Northern Hemispheres — can suddenly and irreversibly shut down as a result of rising temperatures. A growing number of computer simulations, including two preliminary analyses published this summer, have suggested a collapse could occur as soon as 2050.

Much much more at link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/12/24/amoc-collapse-system-climate/

 

[Darsnan]

And now its official: 2024 was the hottest year on record.

2024 was the hottest year on record, breaking the previous record set in 2023 and pushing the world over a critical climate threshold, according to new data from Europe’s climate monitoring agency Copernicus.

Last year was 1.6 degrees hotter than the period before humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels, Copernicus found. It makes 2024 the first calendar year to breach the 1.5-degree limit countries agreed to avoid under the Paris climate agreement in 2015.

And the news headlines are more focused on renaming the Gulf of Mexico, and possibly invading Greenland....

 

[Birdjaguar]

CA wild fires are a new data point.

 

[Tee Kay]

This is a very minor inconvenience compared to everything else climate change is going to do but

Where I live traditionally our summers are pretty mild (average temp range 15 - 25 degrees C) except for occasional heatwaves pushing the temperature up to 35 - 40 degrees C, but this only happened a few times a year and you rarely get more than a single hot day consecutively due to the southernly that usually blows in bringing the temp down.

This is changing slowly and surely year on year (this summer we've been tracking about 2 degrees above average), we've been having more and more hot days and consecutive hot days, and the hot days are getting hotter.

The question is: how many hot days a year justify investing in an air conditioner?

Last year we decided to get a portable air con. It's not great but better than nothing (we live in a rental where installing a fixed air con is not an option). However, this summer we've only turned it on once, and I'll probably turn it on again later tonight or tomorrow night. While there's still two months of summer left to go (officially autumn begins 1 March, but summer weather now extends until at least mid-March) if I can count the number of times I use the air con on one hand I don't know if that's a good investment. But what if I use it 10 times a year, 20 times, 30 times?

I know, I'm sweating (heh) really small stuff, but I'm annoyed that I have to think about this instead of having really hot days be few and far enough between that I can ride it out without air con.

 

[Samson]

Temperatures at north pole 20C above average and beyond ice melting point

Temperatures at the north pole soared more than 20C above average on Sunday, crossing the threshold for ice to melt.

Temperatures north of Svalbard in Norway had already risen to 18C hotter than the 1991–2020 average on Saturday, according to models from weather agencies in Europe and the US, with actual temperatures close to ice’s melting point of 0C. By Sunday, the temperature anomaly had risen to more than 20C.

“This was a very extreme winter warming event,” said Mika Rantanen, a scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. “Probably not the most extreme ever observed, but still at the upper edge of what can happen in the Arctic.”

Julien Nicolas, a scientist at the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, said the unusually mild temperatures in the depths of the polar winter were linked to a deep low-pressure system over Iceland, which was directing a strong flow of warm air towards the north pole.

Extra-hot seas in the north-east Atlantic were strengthening the wind-driven warming, he added.

The Copernicus data showed daily average temperatures were more than 20C above average near the north pole on Sunday, with absolute temperatures above -1C as far north as 87°N.

The findings were confirmed by an Arctic snow buoy, which logged absolute temperatures of 0.5C on Sunday.

 

[Samson]

It is getting serious - Climate change threatens chocolate production

The climate crisis drove weeks of high temperatures in the west African region responsible for about 70% of global cacao production, hitting harvests and probably causing further record chocolate prices, researchers have said.

Farmers in the region have struggled with heat, disease and unusual rainfall in recent years, which have contributed to falling production.

The decline has resulted in an increase in the price of cocoa, which is produced from the beans of the cacao tree and is the main ingredient in chocolate.

Using data from 44 cacao-producing areas in west Africa and computer models, the researchers compared today’s temperatures with a counterfactual of a world not affected by global heating.

The researchers looked at the likelihood of these regions facing temperatures in excess of 32C (89.6 F) – above levels considered optimum for cacao trees.

The report calculated that over the last decade, global heating had added an extra three weeks of temperatures exceeding 32C in Ivory Coast and Ghana during the main growing season between October and March.

Last year, the hottest year globally on record, they found global heating drove temperatures above 32C on at least 42 days across two thirds of the areas analysed.

Researchers said “excessive heat can contribute to a reduction in the quantity and quality of the harvest”.

New York cocoa prices were more than $10,000 a tonne on Wednesday, below a peak of more than $12,500 in mid-December. New York prices have largely hovered between $2,000 and $3,000 a tonne for decades.

Source

 

[Birdjaguar]

If the Atlantic currents get disrupted and the Gulf Stream collapses, Northern Europe might well get its winter days back....

 

[Birdjaguar]

Cleopatra’s birthplace sees ‘dramatic surge’ in building collapses as sea level rises, study shows​

By Mostafa Salem, CNN

Concrete blocks installed to break the Mediterranean sea waves in Alexandria, Egypt. Climate change-driven rising sea levels and sinking land threaten the city's historic buildings.
Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images

CNN —
The historic Egyptian city of Alexandria — the birthplace of Cleopatra — is experiencing a “dramatic surge” in building collapses linked to coastal erosion and rising levels of the Mediterranean Sea, new research has found.

Building collapses were once rare in this port city, but have accelerated from approximately one a year to a staggering 40 a year over the past decade, as sea levels rise and seawater seeps beneath city foundations, according to the study published this month by the University of Southern California.

Founded by Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great more than 2,000 years ago, Alexandria is one of the oldest cities in the world and is currently among the most populated in Africa, home to 6 million people. It’s also one of the most vulnerable to sea level rise, which threatens its historical heritage.

Nestled between the thousands of modern, mid-rise buildings are ancient structures designed and erected over centuries by Alexandria’s diverse ruling dynasties.

They have endured natural disasters, including earthquakes and tsunamis, but now rising seas and intensifying storms, both driven by human-caused climate change, are “undoing in decades what took millennia of human ingenuity to create,” said Sara Fouad, lead author on the study and a landscape architect at the Technical University of Munich.

A collapsed 13-storey-building in the Sidi Bishr district of Egypt's northern city of Alexandria on June 26, 2023.
Hazem Gouda/AFP/Getty Images
The researchers analyzed the impact of shoreline changes in Alexandria using a variety of methods.

They created a digital map to identify locations of collapsed buildings and cataloged details about each one using data collected from site visits, government reports, news archives and statements from private construction companies, spanning twenty years from 2001 to 2021.

They combined satellite imagery and historical maps from three different years — 1887, 1959 and 2001 — to better understand how Alexandria’s 50-mile coastline has moved dozens of feet inland over the past 20 years, raising groundwater levels and bringing them into contact with the foundations of coastal buildings.

The scientists also analyzed isotopes in the soil to understand the impacts of seawater intrusion. This “revealed that buildings are collapsing from the bottom up, as seawater intrusion erodes foundations and weakens the soil,” said Ibrahim H. Saleh, a soil radiation scientist at Alexandria University in Egypt and one of the study’s co-authors.

Even a small increase in sea levels — “just a few centimeters” — can have devastating effects, said Essam Heggy, a water scientist at USC and a study author.

Concrete blocks installed to break the Mediterranean sea waves in Alexandria. Thousands of the city's old buildings are at risk from sea level rise and salt water intrusion.
Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images
About 7,000 old buildings in Alexandria are at risk of collapse, the study found.

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Last year a building fell in the Wardiyan neighborhood of the city, killing four people, and two years ago a 14-story building popular with domestic tourists collapsed. Although initially unclear how the building collapsed, researchers are pointing to encroaching groundwater damage as a possible reason, the Technical University of Munich’s Fouad said.

The researchers have proposed creating sand dunes and vegetation barriers along Alexandria’s coastline to block the encroaching seawater and prevent it from seeping under buildings.

“This sustainable, cost-effective approach can be applied in many coastal densely urbanized regions globally,” said Steffen Nijhuis, a landscape-based urbanist from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and study co-author.

Alexandria is not alone in facing threats from sea-level rise and coastal erosion as the world warms. Many Mediterranean coastal cities face similar risks, as do parts of California’s coastline.

“Our study challenges the common misconception that we’ll only need to worry when sea levels rise by a meter,” Heggy said. “However, what we’re showing here is that coastlines globally, especially Mediterranean coastlines similar to California’s, are already changing and causing building collapses at an unprecedented rate.”

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/27/climate/alexandria-sea-rise-building-collapse-egypt/index.html

 

[Samson]

Greenhouse gases reduce the satellite carrying capacity of low Earth orbit

Earth's atmosphere is shrinking due to climate change and one of the possible negative impacts is that space junk will stay in orbit for longer, bonk into other bits of space junk, and make so much mess that low Earth orbits become less useful.

Increasing concentrations of CO2 inevitably leads to cooling in the upper atmosphere. A consequence of cooling is a contraction of the global thermosphere, leading to reductions in mass density at constant altitude over time.

That's unwelcome because the very low density of matter in the thermosphere is still enough to create drag on craft in low Earth orbit – enough that the International Space Station requires regular boosts to stay in orbit.

It's also enough drag to gradually slow space junk, causing it to descend into denser parts of the atmosphere where it vaporizes. A less dense thermosphere, the authors warn, means more space junk orbiting for longer and the possibility of Kessler syndrome instability – space junk bumping into space junk and breaking it up into smaller pieces until there's so much space junk some orbits become too dangerous to host satellites.

 

[Samson]

Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit

A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.

It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people - including world leaders - at the conference in November.

The state government touts the highway's "sustainable" credentials, but some locals and conservationists are outraged at the environmental impact.

 

[Samson]

Record sea surface temperature jump in 2023–2024 unlikely but not unexpected

Observations and climate models suggest that the global sea surface temperature jump in 2023–2024 was not unexpected and would have been nearly impossible without anthropogenic warming.

Global ocean surface temperatures were at record levels for more than a year from April 2023 onwards, exceeding the previous record in 2015–2016 by 0.25 °C on average between April 2023 and March 20241. The nearly global extent and unprecedented intensity of this event prompted questions about how exceptional it was and whether climate models can represent such record-shattering jumps in surface ocean temperatures2. Here we construct observation-based synthetic time series to show that a jump in global sea surface temperatures that breaks the previous record by at least 0.25 °C is a 1-in-512-year event under the current long-term warming trend (1-in-205-year to 1-in-1,185-year event; 95% confidence interval). Without a global warming trend, such an event would have been practically impossible. Using 270 simulations from a wide range of fully coupled climate models, we show that these models successfully simulate such record-shattering jumps in global ocean surface temperatures, underpinning the models’ usefulness in understanding the characteristics, drivers and consequences of such events. These model simulations suggest that the record-shattering jump in surface ocean temperatures in 2023–2024 was an extreme event after which surface ocean temperatures are expected to revert to the expected long-term warming trend.

Record-shattering jumps in global SSTs as observed in 2023–2024 also occur in climate model simulations.

Spoiler Legend :

a–d, Monthly mean SST anomalies for the largest record-shattering annual (April to March) global (60° S–60° N) SST events before 2024 for observations from NOAA OISST V2.11 (a), and climate model simulations from one CMIP6 simulation (CanESM539,40 r15i1p1f1; b), from one simulation of the GFDL-ESM2M41 large ensemble (LE)42 (ensemble member 27; c) and from one simulation of the CESM243 large ensemble44 (ensemble member LE2-1301.019; d). The years of the onset of the respective events are shown as blue lines, the years of the subsequent decline are shown as orange lines, and the 30 preceding years are shown as grey lines with their mean as a black dotted line. For each of the three climate model groups (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), GFDL-ESM2M-LE and CESM2-LE), the largest record-breaking global jump in SSTs before 2023 is shown. Monthly SST anomalies for all simulated record-shattering global jumps in SSTs between 2000 and 2040 that are larger in magnitude than the observed global jump in SSTs in 2023 and 2024 are shown in Extended Data Fig. 1.

 

[Samson]

Sorry, my bad. It seems this is rubbish.

Spoiler Left here for completeness :

Major reversal in ocean circulation detected in the Southern Ocean, with key climate implications

Thanks to data obtained from Earth observation satellites, an international team of scientists has detected an unprecedented phenomenon for the first time: a reversal in the ocean circulation of the Southern Ocean. The study, led by the National Oceanographic Center (NOC, United Kingdom), was recently published in the journal PNAS. The Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) played a fundamental role in the research by developing a set of pioneering satellite observations within the framework of the SO-FRESH project, funded by the European Space Agency (ESA).

The study’s main finding is both surprising and alarming: since 2016, a sustained increase in surface salinity has been detected in the region between the polar and subpolar gyres of the Antarctic Ocean. This change in water composition suggests that the deep ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere—known as the SMOC—is not only being altered, but has reversed. That is, instead of sinking into the depths, surface water is being replaced by deep water masses rising to the surface, bringing with them heat and carbon dioxide (CO₂) that had been trapped for centuries.

> “We are witnessing a true reversal of ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere—something we’ve never seen before,” explains Antonio Turiel, ICM-CSIC researcher and co-author of the study. “While the world is debating the potential collapse of the AMOC in the North Atlantic, we’re seeing that the SMOC is not just weakening, but has reversed. This could have unprecedented global climate impacts.”

According to the research team, the consequences of this reversal are already becoming visible. The upwelling of deep, warm, CO₂-rich waters is believed to be driving the accelerated melting of sea ice in the Southern Ocean. In the long term, this process could double current atmospheric CO₂ concentrations by releasing carbon that has been stored in the deep ocean for centuries—potentially with catastrophic consequences for the global climate.

 

[Samson]

I am sorry for posting the above article. It seems it is rubbish:

Ignore this crap article, it gets almost everything wrong.

“The stunning reversal of ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere confirms the global climate system has entered a catastrophic phase,” said climate activist Ben See in a post on social media.

Great journalism, quality sources.

The study, published on July 2

Not even a link to the study. This article seems to be what this clickbait trash is referring to:: https://www.icm.csic.es/en/news/maj...ected-southern-ocean-key-climate-implications

That isn't even the study, but it does at least link to it.

The study, led by the National Oceanographic Center (NOC, United Kingdom),

Which is published here:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2500440122

The study itself is actually about reversal of sea ice expansion. It is NOT a reversal in a "current". It is a decrease in warm/cold water stratification.

As usual, read the study, not an article written by interns on a "news" site who don't understand what they're reading and get paid to generate clicks.

Also this has been happening since 2015, it's not a sudden new thing.

However, decades of surface freshening strengthened stratification, trapping subsurface heat at depth, sustaining expanded sea ice coverage (7, 9) and limiting deep convection along with open-ocean polynyas (10).

Here, we show that since 2015, these conditions have reversed: Surface salinity in the polar Southern Ocean has increased, upper-ocean stratification has weakened, sea ice has reached multiple record lows, and open-ocean polynyas have reemerged.

Note my bold. It's NOT saying a "southern ocean current" has reversed. It's saying a set of conditions has reversed related to water temperature stratification, leading to decreases in sea ice.

 

[Samson]

Battery prices are dropping so fast we should build solar panels now and add the batteries in 5 - 10 years

The addition of battery storage to solar plants enhances the ability of those plants to deliver electricity during high-value periods. However, the value proposition of storage improves over time due to falling battery costs and increasing volatility in electricity prices, making it unclear when storage adoption should occur. In this work, we consider a 100 MW solar plant constructed in the year 2022 and build a techno-economic model to determine the optimal system design and timing of storage additions in four locations (CAISO, NYISO, ERCOT, and PJM). We find that the optimal time to add storage is 5–10 years after solar plant construction and that the optimal storage quantity is much higher than the amount selected if storage is included during the initial plant construction. Additionally, the model suggests significant upscaling in inverter capacity, allowing storage to deliver electricity during brief high-price periods. We also consider the effects of temporary and permanent subsidies for batteries, showing that a long-term subsidy encourages economically optimal delays in storage adoption.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Rio Grande is dry along a five mile stretch in Albuquerque. The main cause is lack of spring run-off reserves up stream. Summer thunderstorms have not made it run in the past 10 days.

 

[Drewcifer]

Battery prices are dropping so fast we should build solar panels now and add the batteries in 5 - 10 years

The addition of battery storage to solar plants enhances the ability of those plants to deliver electricity during high-value periods. However, the value proposition of storage improves over time due to falling battery costs and increasing volatility in electricity prices, making it unclear when storage adoption should occur. In this work, we consider a 100 MW solar plant constructed in the year 2022 and build a techno-economic model to determine the optimal system design and timing of storage additions in four locations (CAISO, NYISO, ERCOT, and PJM). We find that the optimal time to add storage is 5–10 years after solar plant construction and that the optimal storage quantity is much higher than the amount selected if storage is included during the initial plant construction. Additionally, the model suggests significant upscaling in inverter capacity, allowing storage to deliver electricity during brief high-price periods. We also consider the effects of temporary and permanent subsidies for batteries, showing that a long-term subsidy encourages economically optimal delays in storage adoption.

Battery prices have dropped so much because there is a glut in the lithium market, but this is a temporary situation. Lithium demand has been rising steadily over the last several years so lithium producers have been raising production, but they misjudged the market which created a glut that has grown over the last two years. The current spot price of lithium is well below the cost of production. This has had the effect of reducing new lithium output which in turn has led to the price trending back upward within the last month. Australian mining giant Rio Tinto estimates that the long term equilibrium price of lithium is about double the current price. The time to build batteries was last year.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I live near one of Spain's best stretches of coastline, with endless beaches, and I've been visiting beaches year-round since I was a child so i know them pretty well. For about ten years now, I've been noticing that what used to be super-wide beaches are becoming barrier beaches. That is, part of the sand is moving out to sea, forming a strip of sand which occasionaly becomes separated from the mainland by a lagoon. Previously, this was only noticeable at very high tides, when the high tide level rose enough to fill the lagoon, but it's becoming more noticeable even at mid-tide.

Here you can see a normally vast beach almost completely submerged under the sea (the open sea is at the left of the image) during a high autumn tide. I took the photo last October. In that area, the lagoon (at the right) is almost year-round. These phenomena, once pretty rare, are becoming more and more common.

Perhaps one of the first noticeable consequences of rising sea levels?

 

[Birdjaguar]

I live near one of Spain's best stretches of coastline, with endless beaches, and I've been visiting beaches year-round since I was a child so i know them pretty well.

Lucky you!