Brazil’s coast eroding faster than ever as Atlantic advances

Climate change-induced rising sea levels threaten coastal communities in Brazil, leading to devastating erosion and loss of biodiversity.

Sonia Ferreira’s two-story house with a pool and garden on the Brazilian coast was yet another casualty of the advancing waves of the Atlantic Ocean, pushed higher by climate change.

On a recent visit, the 80-year-old retiree glanced around the mound of rubble left from the home she abandoned before it was destroyed in 2022 by the pounding waves in Atafona, north of Rio de Janeiro.

“I’ve avoided coming back here because we have many memories. It is so sad,” she said, showing images on her cellphone of the house she built 45 years ago.

Global warming, combined with the silting of the Paraiba River, has contributed to the erosion of Atafona’s coast and caused the destruction of 500 houses, including the collapse of a four-story building by the beach.

This is one of countless beachside communities losing their battles to the ocean up and down Brazil’s 8,500 km of Atlantic coastline.

The sea level has risen 13 cm in the region around Atafona in the last 30 years and could rise another 16 cm by 2050, according to the United Nations report “Surging Seas in a Warming World” released last month.

Coastal areas such as Atafona could see the ocean advance inland as much as 150 meters in the next 28 years, said Eduardo Bulhoes, a marine geographer from Fluminense Federal University.