Gold Coast Beach Erosion and Climate Change

In an article about beach erosion and climate change in 2013 Vine wrote, "We can now see the environmental precipice approaching fast."

Cyclone Alfred

Since then there's been much more beach erosion on the Gold Coast and around the world, and now in 2025 Cyclone Alfred has decimated the Australian east coast beaches once again.

Cyclone Alfred is the strongest cyclone for 51 years to hit so far south on the east coast of Australia.

 

Cyclones to become More Costly 

As a major tourist destination, Queensland's Gold Coast has access to hundreds of millions of dollars for  beach restoration, which most other East Coast beach areas do not have. And the cost of restoration after cyclones and climate change-exacerbated disasters is increasing with the increased severity of the damage caused as climate change worsens.

 

Climate change made Tropical Cyclone Alfred more damaging and more costly.

Many newspaper articles seem keen to point out that beach sands can replenished themselves naturally, over time. But you have to look in the small print buried deep in the article to read that beaches can only replenish themselves naturally IF further damaging storms and cyclones do not keep happening before they have a chance to do so. And those same newspaper articles keep pointing to the Gold Coast as an example of how beach sand replenishes itself, even though the Gold Coast ALWAYS uses $multi-million budgets to replace the sand. 

 

Climate change has now made the natural beach sand replenishment that most areas in Australia rely upon, a very big IF.

 

Scientists warn that in the future, the areas inundated by Tropical Cyclone Alfred will be amongst those that face even more extreme rainfall events.

 

SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS from the Climate Council tells us that for every degree of global warming, Australians will experience 7-28% more rain for hourly events, and 2-15% more for longer duration events. This amount of rainfall is significantly higher than the 5% typically accounted for in Australia’s flood planning standards.

 

WARNING: Our Oceans Are Warming 4 times faster than Expected !!!

The ebb and flow of sand means it isn't possible tell what the state of our coastline is in just one snapshot of time. When some areas seem to have a lot of sand, other areas are struggling, but climate scientists warn that oceans temperatures are now warming 4 times faster than the 1980s.  Ninety percent of global warming is occurring in the ocean, and heat stored in the ocean causes its water to expand, which is responsible for one-third to one-half of global sea level rise.And Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier’, Thwaites Glacier, is melting even faster than scientists thought.

Scientists say: "We REALLY, REALLY need to understand how fast the ice is changing, how fast it is going to change over the next 20 to 50 years".

Thwaites Glacier is one of the bulwarks guarding against the collapse of critical Antarctic ice sheets that rest below sea level and hold enough ice to raise the ocean by 3.3 meters.

So if you were thinking that beach erosion is going to be the same in the next 50 years as it was in the last 50 years, you had better think again.

Climate pollution, caused by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, is driving more ferocious extreme weather events like Cyclone Alfred, flooding and fire. And the only way to mitigate this is begin to STOP burning fossil fuels NOW!

The inadequate efforts by BOTH major political parties in Australia (and around the world) to stop burning fossil fuels, are far too little and far too late.

 

Where Our Hope Lies...
Walk Lightly on Our Earth

As Vine wrote in her original 2013 article on beach erosion and climate change... "Knowing how bad we have allowed things to become, is also where our hope lies."

"In finally knowing how serious the problem is, we can at last collectively find the will to make the changes necessary to live in harmony with nature, walk lightly on the Earth, and have hope for future generations.

If we can be the custodians of our Earth we can make a difference."