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Brazil's coast eroding faster than ever as Atlantic advances

Sonia Ferreira's. twostory home with a pool and garden on the Brazilian coast. was yet another casualty of the advancing waves of the Atlantic. Ocean, pushed greater by environment change.

On a recent check out, the 80-year-old retired person glanced around. the mound of debris left from the home she abandoned before it. was ruined in 2022 by the pounding waves in Atafona, north of. Rio de Janeiro.

I've avoided coming back here since we have many. memories. It is so sad, she stated, revealing images on her. cellphone of your house she built 45 years ago.

Global warming, integrated with the silting of the Paraiba. River, has actually contributed to the erosion of Atafona's coast and. triggered the destruction of 500 houses, including the collapse of. a four-story building by the beach.

This is among many beachside neighborhoods losing their. fights to the ocean up and down Brazil's 8,500 km of Atlantic. coastline.

The water level has risen 13 cm (5 inches) in the region. around Atafona in the last thirty years and could rise another 16 cm. by 2050, according to the United Nations report Surging Seas in. a Warming World launched last month.

Coastal locations such as Atafona could see the ocean advance. inland as much as 150 meters in the next 28 years, said Eduardo. Bulhoes, a marine geographer from Fluminense Federal University.

The combination of climate modification and worldwide warming ... with a river that no longer carries sand to the beaches of. Atafona, has actually caused a catastrophe for its homeowners and there is. no hope that this scenario will be reversed, he told Reuters.

Although dramatic, Atafona's plight is not distinct in Brazil.

The beach in Ponta Negra, one of the most popular seaside. resorts on the northeast shoulder of Brazil, is likewise shrinking. In the last 20 years, it has actually lost 15 meters of white sand to. the sea. The city government is bringing sand from in other places in. a pricey effort to recover the beach.

At the mouth of the magnificent Amazon River, a fragile community. is threatened with a loss of biodiversity as the river has lost. strength in the area's most extreme drought on record, letting. seawater from the ocean advance upstream.

Seawater comes further up the river and this will change. the whole biodiversity of that area, stated oceanographer Ronaldo. Christofoletti, at the Federal University of Sao Paulo.

In 2015, seawater reached practically as far upriver as. Macapa, a city 150 km (95 miles) from the mouth of the Amazon,. eliminating freshwater fish and affecting local fishing neighborhoods.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the. U.N. body for evaluating the science associated to environment change,. reported that water level are rising faster than ever, with the. rate more than doubling in the past 10 years to 0.48 cm a year,. compared to 0.21 cm yearly in 1993-2002.

Christofoletti stated the loss of land in seaside towns and. beaches is inevitable with rising seas, questioning why city. preparation had actually not adapted.

It is shocking to see houses being ruined in Atafona. But you were not expected to built homes there. You should have. woods, a mangrove overload, a sandbank, ecosystems that would. naturally be prepared to hold the sea, he said.

(source: Reuters)