![]() Building sea walls will work for a while, but the blocked water will continue to rise, inundating all the beaches. Today, the Earth's ice continues to melt and there's not much anyone can do to stop the water. Griggs said during the last Ice Age, the Santa Cruz coastline was 10 miles farther out. If we keep going where we're going, this is what's going to happen." We haven't done too much to slow it down, so it's giving us sort of a warning flag. "The writing is on the wall," said Griggs. In San Francisco, the model shows the coastline relocating about five blocks into the neighborhoods at Ocean Beach. That includes some of the state's most iconic beaches, like Stinston, Santa Monica, Newport and Morrow Bay. The study concludes that "by 2100, the model estimates that 25-70 percent of California's beaches may become completely eroded due to sea level rise scenarios of. Researchers used 20 years of satellite images of Ocean Beach in San Francisco to form models of what would happen if the sea rises from half a meter to three meters in height. I've never seen anything like that here."įor years, the city has been placing giant boulders to try to stave off nature's onslaught, but a study from the U.S Geological Survey says places like West Cliff Drive are probably doomed. "West Cliff Drive here in Santa Cruz was hammered!" he said. University of California, Santa Cruz earth sciences professor Gary Griggs says a seven-foot swell and 27-foot waves rose up over the cliffs, flooding the street and eroding the natural sea wall. ![]() Now there is caution tape in places and warning signs at the cliff's edge. West Cliff Drive was battered by a massive storm on January 5th. ![]() "Yeah, I can see that people are going to have to start worrying a little bit more about what's going on." "It's a little bit more severe than previous years," he said. But a new government study predicts that many of California's most iconic beaches are in danger of disappearing.Īs he takes one of his regular walks along the sidewalk overlooking the Santa Cruz coastline, Pat Terrault says the evidence of climate change is there for everyone to see. As the Earth's ice melts and sea levels rise, cities along the coast are considering ways to hold back the rising waters. ![]()
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