Pirate's Cove

In the future, of course

Major loss of California beaches predicted in latest climate forecast

As ocean levels rise, waves crash farther inland and the coast continues to crumble, Southern California is on track to lose 30 to 70% of its beaches over the next several decades. Almost half of all beach cliffs are likely to retreat by 30 to 80 feet by 2100. And a 1.6-foot increase in sea level rise by 2060 will leave low-lying coastal areas including the ports, Santa Monica, Venice and Redondo beaches particularly vulnerable to floods and storms, with one estimate predicting 15,000 people exposed in Los Angeles County.

Those are just some of the dire findings in California’s Fifth Climate Change Assessment, a state-commissioned report that comes out every several years and details how climate change is expected to affect everything from public health to animal habitat to central touchstones of the California way of life.

“There are things in there that are hard to digest, and hard to wrap our heads around,” said Abby Edwards, senior deputy director for the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, which led the assessment. “I just hope that this can be a call to action to make sure we are still really doubling down on all of our climate mitigation goals.”

Let’s see:

Santa Monica (which would cover Venice, as well, since so close): .36 feet since 1983

Redondo Beach is halfway between Santa Monica and the LA station, which shows .17 feet since 1983

We aren’t going to get 1.6 feet of rise in 34 years. More like another 150-200 years, if things continue the way they’ve been. This is all doomsaying for money and and government controlling citizen’s lives.

I’m not digging the change to the NOAA website, especially since no longer seems to have international data, and it really doesn’t have the historical tide gauge data. The probably removed it as it is even more inconvenient.