Storms and coastal erosion

Many areas of the Arctic coast line have faced severe erosion over the last few decades because of a combination of permafrost degradation, reduced sea ice cover and sea level rise. For example, a fall storm, accompanied by maximum winds of more than 80 km/h, sustained winds of 50 km/h for 30 hours and a near record storm surge of 2.2 metres struck the Canadian Beaufort Sea coast on September 21, 1993. Though not large by temperate or tropical standards, these wind and water levels combined with more than three hundred kilometres of ice-free ocean to create wave and current conditions which caused dramatic cliff erosion along much of the coast. [24]

Since 1946, the coastal community of Tuktoyaktuk has suffered severe erosion, losing up to 100 metres of coast in places, and has been forced to relocate a school and a police station to prevent them from falling into the Beaufort Sea. [25]