Will Climate Change Wipe Out Surfing?
There is already evidence that storms driven by climate change are causing bigger swells—which makes surfers happy. What makes surfers worry is sea level rise.
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August 9, 2012 • By Sam Kornell • 1 Comment and 47 Reactions
Jacob Hechter is gingerly traversing the rocks on his way out to Rincon, in Santa Barbara. Known as the Queen of the Coast, Rincon is a 300-yard cobblestone point that lies at a right angle to the rest of the Southern California coast, catching swells and sending surfers barreling down its sweeping curve. As he navigates the rocks, Hechter, a cartographer, muses aloud about what climate change might mean for a sport whose domain is the thin slice of Earth where the lip of the land gives way to the fury of the ocean—a domain that is expected to alter dramatically as the world heats up.
“Every time a new climate study comes out its worse than the last,” Hechter says. “Climate change means more big storms. More storms, more surf, right? I guess that’s the most you can say for such a calamity: Maybe we’ll get some epic waves.”
Among surfers, Hechter’s assumption is common. According to Curt Storlazzi, a surfer and a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who studies coastlines, it is true that climate change will likely cause ever-larger storms, and more epic swells. But that doesn’t take into account the varied effects of climate change. The periods between those swells will lengthen: surfers may get to enjoy a week of all-time surf, but that might be followed by a month or more of excruciating flatness. “Climate change makes extremes more extreme,” Storlazzi said. Over time, he added, because the waves between storms will get smaller even as the bigger waves get bigger, the average height of waves is likely to stay the same, and may even go down a bit.
There is already evidence that storms driven by climate change are causing bigger swells—which makes surfers happy. What makes surfers worry is sea level rise.