"The storms that battered the West Coast during the winter of 2009-10 eroded record chunks of shoreline, and more will likely disappear as the changing climate brings more such powerful storm seasons, scientists warn in a new study.
Pacific waves were 20 percent stronger on average than any year since 1997 and higher-than-usual sea levels drove them further inland, tearing away on average one-third more land in California.
Pacific waves were 20 percent stronger on average than any year since 1997 and higher-than-usual sea levels drove them further inland, tearing away on average one-third more land in California.
The state's beaches were 'eroded to often unprecedented levels,' said Patrick Barnard, a coastal geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who led the research.
'It's the kind of winter we may experience more frequently' as global temperatures rise, he said.
Nowhere along the West Coast was erosion more pronounced than at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. That winter, the Pacific encroached 184 feet inland, 75 percent more than in a typical season.
Waves reaching 30 feet eroded bluffs and triggered the collapse of a section of Highway 1. It reopened with one of its two southbound lanes permanently closed. San Francisco built a 425-foot rock bulwark to protect the road and the wastewater treatment plant behind it."
