I have been trying to point this out for decades now. Sand on any sea beach comes and goes depending on nature. As the article states, data used was collected between 2000 and 2007. It just so happens that from 2000 to 2005, the names of 18 devastating "named storms" were retired. That had never happened before in the history of weather keeping. And in 2005, there were so many named storms that the weather service ran out of names and started calling them Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon and Zeta. That again has never happened in the annuals of weather keeping. With all that wave activity during those 6 consecutive years, it would be impossible for the Negril beach not to shrink in size.
But since then, the Atlantic storms have returned to their normal historical trends, allowing the beach to gain in size, which is called accretion. And as for the sea level rise, there has been one world wide - the first real satellite data collected from 1993 to 2010 shows a world wide gain of 3 millimeters. In the actual world map shown below, you can see for yourself where the sea level has risen the most. And please look very carefully around Negril, the sea level has either shown no increase at all or has actually decreased by a millimeter or two.
Here is what I have posted in the past...
"This has been discussed at length many times here. Any beach is an ever changing entity, the phrase "shifting sands" did not come about without merit.
Here is a photo of Kirk Douglas on the Negril beach back in the late 50's. You can see how wide the beach was on that day.
I dont think two beach lounges would fit comfortably in that space end to end - the beach being maybe 20 feet wide. And that is without any concrete structures on the beach back then.
And now, some 50 years later, according to the current article in the OP's post, one agency says that in some sections the "sand is receding at a rate of more than a meter (over a yard) a year."
In January 2012, another article claimed that beach would be gone in 10 years.
http://negril.com/forum/showthread.p...try-as-we-know
In that thread I posted part of a reply as follows:
"Here is a picture that I took just a couple minutes ago (in January 2012) on the beach at Charela Inn. Please note the position of their sign as well as the curve of the bay off in the distance.
Here is a picture I took at this same location back in March of 1998. It was featured on the Negril.com Negril Today page.
Once again note the sign and the curve of the bay in the background. As you notice, they are taken from approximately the same position, but some 14 years apart."
For the above "meter per year", there would need to be 14 meters or over 42 feet of beach no longer there in the first picture, the current, "after" photo. I dont see it missing, do you?"
