California's coast under siege: A winter of flooding, big waves and erosion in the forecast

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Set us as preferred A rare convergence of a powerful El Niño, super king tides and sea level rise spurred by climate change could menace California with record coastal flooding this winter.Already, officials are observing higher tides than typical.

Swells are eroding beaches, damaging parking lots and bathrooms, and even resurfacing long-buried coastal infrastructure.And that’s before El Niño even kicks into high gear.

Jonathan Warrick, a research geologist with the U.S.Geological Survey, said that the climate pattern — commonly viewed as a rainmaker in Southern California — also turbocharges the sea.

“There’s a phenomena during El Niños where the waters offshore California get warmer, and they actually rise up, up to a foot, sometimes more, higher than average,” he said.California A strengthening El Niño could bring the highest sea levels ever recorded to the California coast this year, raising the risk of widespread and damaging flooding.That may not seem like much, but it’s more than enough to wreak havoc on lower-lying homes and coastal infrastructure.

Over the past 125 years, the average sea level in San Francisco Bay, for example, has already risen by about 1 foot — an increase experts link to human-caused climate change.“Folks who really think about coastal risks are very concerned that the single-highest sea levels on record are quite possible this winter in California,” said Daniel Swain, a UC climate scientist.

“And that is going to be a problem.”This pattern has happened before.During the “very strong” El Niños of 1982-83 and 1997-98, as well as the “strong” El Niño of 2023-24, San Francisco Bay logged record monthly average sea levels.“The fact that our seas will be higher than average is a very concerning factor for coastal erosion and wave impact on cliffs and other s...