Your Fault: Climate Crisis Scam Comes For Surf Spots

25 years ago these people were all about Darwinism and evolution and natural processes (a lot was opposition to George W Bush being a Christian). And scientists cared about science, and understood that things change. Now? It’s a doomsday cult

Climate Change Has It In for the World’s Best Surfing

The climate crisis is coming for some of the world’s greatest surf breaks, submerging some as sea level rises and wiping out others as classic breaks get crushed against coastal developments.

Analysis of dozens of famous waves in World Surfing Reserves (WSR) found that more than three-quarters were at high risk because of changing tide levels, hardened shorelines, and shifting sands.

The impacts matter not only to the surfers catching the waves but also to the communities that depend on the multibillion-dollar surf economy, often located in places with little else.

The waves rated at most risk in the study include the “bombing barrels” of Croyde Beach in North Devon, UK; the point breaks at Noosa in Australia and Oriente Salvaje, El Salvador; and Santa Cruz reefs of California such as Sewer Peak and Wind and Sea.

The best surfing waves are created by intricate combinations of seafloor shape, swell direction, and tide. “Surf breaks are incredibly unique oceanographic phenomena—a confluence of all these factors that fit together just right to make the wave happen—and so those processes are really sensitive,” said Dan Reineman, an associate professor at California State University Channel Islands and a coauthor of the study.

What would those breaks have been like in 1900, when the seas were around 8 inches lower than they are today? Or a couple hundred years ago when the seas were going down from the Little Ice Age? Things change. How about when the seas were 500+ feet lower due to the last ice age, and people were building towns which are now covered by the seas? When the waves moved the sand near shore from storms and ocean circulations.

See this webcam of Manasquan, NJ. It has always been one of the best breaks on the East coast, but, notice the sandbars causing weird wave movent as it pans to the right, near the jetty? The last Noreaster’ caused that, shift a lot of sand to build those. I’ve seen it happen before, and then the sea will take it away. Probably be gone be the end of Spring with all the winter storms. I know. I grew up surfing there.

Global heating is pushing up sea level and changing rainfall patterns that affect sediment movement, which can upset the delicate balance and destroy the wave. However, the researchers said the expert local knowledge of surfers could be tapped to help protect the waves.

Sigh. Global heating. The Earth is not static, cultists. You’re embarrassing.