Who would have thought that cliffs in a seismic zone would crumble? That the seas would cause cliffs to erode? This never would have happened if you weren’t driving a fossil fueled vehicle
California’s cliffs are crumbling as climate change reshapes the coast
Among the coveted places to live in this city, if you have the money, is West Cliff Drive. How much longer that will be true is the question.
The cliff-top road is falling into the Pacific in large chunks, leaving gaping holes and closing lanes along a normally busy street. A process that has taken place over centuries is quickening after a rare series of winter and spring storms that brought abnormally high tides, potent surf and lots of rain.
The sea is taking back the land. It is happening at various speeds along much of California’s coast, changing the ragged western edge of the country and threatening neighborhoods, highways and ways of life.
For decades, California has built to the brink of the continent, a risk-reward calculus where the reward of a sparkling Pacific Ocean with your morning coffee easily trumps some future risk of a collapsing cliff. The cliffs, some more than 300 feet straight up, star in car commercials and TV shows, the edge-of-seat finales of action movies and, in real life, serve as the perfect takeoff point for paragliders.
If you build in places that are not stable, don’t be surprised. Or blame it on witchcraft, er, ‘climate change’.
But today it is some of the state’s most famed cliffs, overlooking about 500 miles of California’s coast, that are among those most imperiled by rising sea levels and more potent storms.
In Isla Vista, the site of University of California at Santa Barbara, apartment buildings regularly lose front patios and facades to the encroaching ocean, sliding down 200-foot cliffs toward the beach. A major coastal railroad track between Orange County and San Diego is closed frequently — most recently in April after new slides — as erosion undermines the ground beneath it. Repair costs for several sliding sections have reached $14 million so far.
Santa Barbara’s gauge, which is short term, shows barely any rise. Port San Luis, 90 miles away, which is long term, shows just .31 feet per 100 years of rise. Santa Monica shows .50 feet. That’s well below where a warm period should be. LA goes back to 1923, just .34 feet of rise. How is this Doom?
A year ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that sea level would rise 8 inches in California and along the West Coast within the next 25 years. At the same time, though, the state government is trimming funds for and discouraging cities from strengthening weak bluffs and cliffs with relatively short-term measures.
There’s one gauge that shows even a foot of rise per 100 years, North Split, and it has to be an outlier, because the next northern gauge, Crescent City, shows negative .27, and it goes back to 1933. San Francisco goes back to 1897, showing .64 feet. It’s all just apocalyptic Scaremongering, expecting weak minded cultists to just buy into it with zero evidence.
Since we’ve been told that
global warmingclimatechangeemergency can cause volcanoes to erupt, surely it can cause a cliff or two to crumble!It’s probably unfair to ask a GW cult member to explain just How those Cliffs came to be. Asking them to explain Why they believe the cliffs should not continue to change would obviously be something only a white supremacist would ask. It’s probably as hateful as asking why the natural events that brought Earth OUT of the Last ice age were Intended to Only warm Earth enough for humans to be able to survive more easily. Any further warming must surely be somebody’s FAULT.
Jim Steele is an environmental scientist out in California.
Jim Steele recognizes that the last ice age is still melting, the earth is not warming, it is less cold.
All climates are local according to Jim Steele’s proclamations, careful study of the ecology and environments always reveal the real evidence.
The California coastline will be shaking for another 1000 years, can’t stop Mother Nature.
All of the deciduous trees, grasses, plants, in the northern hemisphere are in full leaf stage, those plants are drinking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere night and day while the weather is good. What is happening is the carbon dioxide is being depleted by those greedy carbon dioxide drunken plants.
Save carbon dioxide, kill all plant life.
Not my fault, it’s the plants’ fault, all of them.
When you just make up stuff, expect it to be debunked.
Harumph!
The Pacific plate is moving laterally northward against the North American plate [the San Andreas Fault is the meeting]. It is logical that there would be little vertical movement overall. Kali is on a geologically active area and is moving. Live with it, there’s nothing you can do about it.
All environments are local! What’s happening now on a global scale is that more of the Sun’s energy entering the Earth system is being retained than is escaping to space. Why? A significant increase in atmospheric CO2 from our burning of fossil fuels. By now you well understand the physics of CO2 and infrared radiation. The result is our current bout of global warming.
Our oceans serve as a sink for much of the excess CO2 AND heat!
Despite the tide gauges coastal communities are mitigating the effects of rising water, flooding and extreme storms by strengthening sea walls, moving inland and reinforcing structures. Should these places stop all preparations since it’s all a scam.
Thanks, dumbass, for proving his point.
You’re not very smart, are you?
#ClimateCultistRimjob
Bwaha! Lolgf
You’re such a douche sometimes with your deliberate silly comments. No one here believes mitigating rising water is foolish. We believe the reasons you give are and your overall plan blows.
Yes, that’s the hypothesis. No demonstration of it in a simple experiment, though
Funny-“should these places stop all preparations since it’s a scam”. The only “scam” part is the assertion that flooding and extreme storms are any worse than they used to be. They are not