Coastal Storms and Climate Change over the Last Two Centuries, East Coast, Australia

Coastal storms and climate observations have been compiled for east coast Australia from records going back to European discovery (1770) and settlement (1788). The 200 year record incorporates a wide range of indicators and observations on climate change, climatic variability and coastline response. While early 1800's records are indicative, records from the mid 1800's are more reliable and blend into climatic observations commenced in late 1800's. Analysis over centuries allows longer term climate change trends to be differentiated from climate variability. The study demonstrates the variable and oscillating nature of coastal climatic events over years and especially decades (climate variability). Despite multi-decadal oscillations of climate and coastal response, an underlying long term erosion trend is indicated by loss of inshore sediment and a retreating inland storm face cut into stranded late Pleistocene dunes. The trend of a slowly rising sea level is attributed to climate change.