But not before The Hurley Pro (fingers crossed)!
The United States of America has one stop on the magnificent World Surf League Championship Tour and it is Lower Trestles. Do you enjoy surfing there? Braving the mad pack of Brazilians? Staking your claim on California’s high performance wave? Making air reverses?
Well you better get your fill now because The Smithsonian says it is going away along with The Wedge, Topanga and Santa Cruz. Let’s read?
It may seem that stronger storms and swells would be a boon to surfers. But as with many aspects of living in a changing climate, the outlook is far more complicated.
As a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey predicts, by 2100 many of Southern California’s most popular surfing spots could be subsumed beneath rising seas. Others could simply wash away.
Beaches are not static places. The very action of the waves that formed them, pulverizing rocks into sand over eons, can unmake them, reports Ramin Skibba for Hakai Magazine. “In Southern California, winter storms and heavy surf pull sand away, and summer waves and sediment from rivers gradually bring it back,” Skibba writes.
Climate change could alter that balance, the new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, suggests. In the next eight decades, Southern California may have to deal with a sea level rise of between 3.3 and 6.5 feet that could erode 31 to 67 percent of the region’s beaches, the researchers say.
That would be a loss for surfers that seek out long, scenic rides at Topanga, the bizarre and brutal break called “The Wedge” at Newport or the classic and beloved “Lower Trestles” outside of San Clemente. (All make Surfer Today’s list of the best Southern California surf spots.) Surf spots where waves break at low tide may disappear when the sea level rises. Spots where waves break at high tide will only break at low tide.
Those measures might prevent some beach erosion, but they don’t have surfer’s needs in mind. For The Inertia, an online surfing community, surfer and scientist Shawn Kelly explains the serious effects climate chance will have on the sport. He brings his authority as a…
Wait just a damned second. The Inertia? How did those kooky bastards weasel into my morning? Well now I don’t know what to believe and, to be honest, am inclined to discount this entire “sea level rise” thing altogether.
The Inertia for Pete’s sake. I mean, seriously. The Inertia. First the pride of Venice-adjacent tries to take the fun out of weed and now this? Now this?
Sons of bitches. Sons of damned bitches.