El Niño is threatening California’s fragile coast again – the 1982-83 El Niño opened eyes to the serious erosion risks
Storm waves eroded the dunes from beneath homes in Pajaro Dunes, Calif., on Monterey Bay, during the powerful 1982-83 El Nino. Gary Griggs California’s coastal bluffs and beaches look rugged, but they can be surprisingly fragile in the face of a powerful El Niño. The state saw that in 1982-83, when…
Résumé
El Niño basics
El Niño is a climate pattern that occurs every few years, swinging between warm and cold phases.
During an El Niño, trade winds weaken, causing warm water to shift eastward from the western Pacific toward South America.
This warm water moves north along California’s coast as a Kelvin wave, raising sea levels by about 1 to 2 feet (0.3 to 0.6 meters) due to thermal expansion.
The phenomenon disrupts weather patterns globally, often bringing heavy rainfall to normally dry areas and droughts to wet regions.
In California, El Niño typically intensifies atmospheric river storms—long, narrow bands of moisture that dump torrential rain and cause flooding.
The 1982-83 El Niño was one of the strongest on record, with sea levels elevated by nearly 2 feet in San Francisco and about 1 foot in San Diego above predicted high tides.
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