Stephani's Blog

 The UK has a history of struggles with coastal erosion, particularly along its southern and eastern shores. More and more settlements are placed along coastlines and this is especially worrisome because they risk losing their properties to unstable coastal cliffs. The UK does not have lengthy sandy beaches (arguably one of the best ways to combat coastal erosion) and instead loses a lot of their coast to the high and destructive ocean waves. With the rising of ocean levels due to climate change, we expect to see more trends like these to continue.  Below is a map outlining some of the areas that are both vulnerable to coastal erosion and that could have potentially catastrophic economic downfalls.  Some of the most vulnerable areas, such as Skegness and Great Yarmouth in England as well as Port Talbot and Aberystwyth in Wales,   stand to lose an accumulation of 22 billion euros worth of properties, affecting an upwards of 100,000 people. 

 I suppose it must not be surprising to know that the United Kingdom has experienced the same rising in temperatures that everywhere else in the world has seen due to climate change. The United Kingdom, along with almost every other country in the world signed the Paris Agreement, which is part of a worldwide effort to combat climate change. The agreement states that everyone should collectively try to reduce carbon emissions that will hurt the ozone layer further and most importantly keep the Earth from going above 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperature averages.The image below states more about the increase in UK average temperatures as well as the increased “ frequency, duration, and intensity of these events ”. The UK has experienced the 10 hottest days in their recorded history all in the last 20 years. Keep in mind that the UK has been recording temperatures since 1884. Unfortunately, they have also had 2 huge heatwaves recently. The second biggest heat wave in 2003