OPINION: Climate change reflected in rip currents at Queens, Brooklyn beaches
If you take the trouble to read international news, you’ll see alarming reports of record-breaking temperatures all over the world. In early July, temperatures of 124 were reported in Algeria. Denver tied its record of 105 degrees in June. Montreal saw its highest temperature in history, 97, on July 2. And on July 23, the mercury in Kumagaya, about 40 miles northwest of Tokyo, soared to 106 degrees.
Yet, if we want to see evidence of climate change (or, as some would call it, global warming), we don’t have to go that far. We can see it at the beaches in Brooklyn and Queens, not to mention Nassau and Suffolk counties further out on Long Island.
The problem is rip currents — fast-moving, narrow channels of water that can drag swimmers out to sea. While climate change is not increasing their incidence, it is making them more unpredictable, according to Dr. Simon Boxall, an oceanographer at the University of Southampton (U.K).