Surf's up! Wave heights increase on California's coasts as climate warms

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/01/ [login to see] /surfs-up-wave-heights-increase-on-californias-coasts-as-climate-warms
Earlier this year, California was pummeled by what local surfer's described as the best swell in decades: massive waves that damaged piers, crumbled sea cliffs and flooded coastlines. A new study finds that wave heights are getting bigger along the California coast as global temperatures have warmed.

The study, published Tuesday in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, looked at nearly a century's worth of data, and found that the average height of winter waves have grown by about a foot since 1969. The number of storm events that produced waves greater than 13 feet in height has also increased, the study found.

In that same time, the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to an increase in average global temperatures by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit.

"This is just another indication that overall average wave heights have increased significantly since 1970 — since the advent of the upward trend in global warming," said Peter Bromirski, researcher emeritus at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the study's author.