#WEATHER SANTA CRUZ BEACH BOARDWALK CA DRIVER#
“It’s really hard to say right now what that means, but we do know that tourism is a major driver of our economy here locally,” said Tiffany Wise-West, the sustainability and climate action manager for the city of Santa Cruz. This would come with “high rates of beach and coastal bluff retreat”, the document states. By 2100, this grows to 390 residential and 65 commercial properties, along with seven miles of roads. According to a city climate plan, more than 70 Santa Cruz buildings are expected to be at risk from flooding within 12 years with 4in of sea level rise. A separate rock formation, known locally as “the old shoe”, is now more like the bottom of a heel.īut climate change is accelerating this process. A rock arch near the lighthouse collapsed in the late 19th century, with just a stump remaining now.
“When the surf and spray comes over it, I’d say it’s treacherous.”Įrosion has shaped California’s coast since long before mass industrialization started pumping planet-warming gases into the atmosphere. “West Cliff Drive is our cherished road, it’s our treasure chest, and every winter we can see the whole cliff is becoming more unstable,” he said. Muchas frets about surfing spots that will suffer as the coasts recede, leading to overcrowding at the better areas, as well as the impacts on land. “If you ask a surfer, it’s very apparent that climate change is real and is happening right before our eyes,” said Nick Muchas, who has lived and surfed in Santa Cruz for the past 15 years.
A former lighthouse, now a surfing museum, overlooks surfers scrambling over the rocks and into the foaming water. Surfers from around the world now descend upon Santa Cruz to spots such as Steamer Lane, where a rip hurtles into a sandstone bluff that has been in retreat since the last ice age and is now guarded by an array of rocks. This scenario is particularly painful for a place like Santa Cruz, which draws its cultural and economic strength from its beaches and pounding waves.Īccording to local lore, three visiting Hawaiian princes introduced surfing to the city in 1885, when they rode the waves in longboards milled from local redwood. In the long run, the main beach in Santa Cruz will certainly be lost, if nothing is done.” “They didn’t have any idea what they were getting into,” said Griggs, who is doing consulting work for the owners amid a tussle with authorities over riprap earlier put in place without permission. There is only one house on the ocean side of the road, and its owners moved in recently. Sections of the cliffs beneath West Cliff Drive are abutted by piles of rocks, known as riprap, placed as a last-ditch attempt to stem erosion.
Santa Cruz sits on the northern lip of Monterey Bay, which is losing several feet of beach a year. “West Cliff Drive is the place to be now lots of people who made money in Silicon Valley have moved there.” “Coastal property values are way inflated, factoring in all the risk involved,” Griggs said. The street’s beach houses and towering villas are regularly valued beyond $2m, with some vacant plots of land fetching $1m. West Cliff Drive, which sits on an elevated bluff, hugs the coast near Santa Cruz’s 111-year-old boardwalk en route to a nature reserve thick with eucalyptus. “I think with every coastal road in California, you’re going have to think about relocating it,” said Gary Griggs, an earth sciences professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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