“Surfing is the soul of coastal culture in California, where more than one million surfers drive a surfing industry worth billions and pump millions into local economies. Sea level rise is increasing the ocean's depth at surf breaks along our whole coast with the potential to not only drown beaches and infrastructure but waves as well. The best surfing conditions at one-third of the more than 100 California's surf breaks we surveyed could drown with only one-and-a-half feet of sea level rise; three feet threatens more than 80 percent of these California breaks.”
– Dan Reineman, Ph.D, assistant professor of environmental science and resource management at CSU Channel Islands