Stand on a beach for any length of time and you'll get a brief glimpse into how winds, waves and tides shape the coastline bit by bit, day by day. But thanks to NASA satellites, we can see just how dramatically those changes are when viewed over a longer time span.
Earlier this week, the NASA Earth Observatory featured a look at the Cape Cod coastline in its World of Change series, which tells the story of how the planet is changing rapidly before our eyes through satellite photos taken over years, sometimes decades – of deforestation in the Amazon, the shrinking Aral Sea and mountaintop mines in West Virginia, to name a few.
As NASA notes in its story accompanying the satellite photos, the patterns of interaction among the sand, wind and water shown in these photos have been shaping the contours of Cape Cod's beaches – known as the Nauset-Monomoy barrier islands – for more than 300 years:
"Barrier beaches and spits are constantly raised up, shifted, and torn down by the natural ebb and flow of waves, currents, winds, and tides. Storms can reshape them abruptly and dramatically. Hooks form, inlets open and close, and beaches slowly march across their back bays and lagoons toward the mainland, as if seeking shelter from the full force of the ocean. This process allows them to naturally march upwards as sea levels rise."
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