Storm Waves Hitting Coast, Sign of Climate Change?

Tom Banse
01/28/2008

For a lot of us, it would be a dream to own a second home on the Oregon or Washington Coast. But for some people who have achieved that dream, it's turning into a headache this winter. Pounding storms are eroding and flooding beachfront property. Weather buoy records going back more than two decades show winter storm wave heights steadily rising on the Northwest Coast. Correspondent Tom Banse visited coastal residents who want to know why this is happening.

TRANSCRIPT

DUMP TRUCKS DELIVER ONE LOAD AFTER ANOTHER OF FRESH DIRT AND HUGE BOULDERS TO SAVE A ROW OF BEACHFRONT HOMES AND CONDOS IN TINY NESKOWIN, OREGON. NEIGHBOR LESLIE GORDON CAME TO LOOK OVER THE LEDGE AT THE FROTHING OCEAN.

GORDON: "We were standing here last week and it just came right up over, every single wave hitting the building and hitting the building."

A MILE UP THE BEACH, LONG–TIME RESIDENT DIANA BURKE IS ALL BUNDLED UP FOR A WALK. SHE STOPS TO SNAP PICTURES OF BOARDED UP PROPERTIES AND DISAPPEARING DUNES.

BURKE: "The beach is mostly gone and what used to be a gentle slope in front of these houses is now a cliff."

BURKE WONDERS IF THE COAST IS SEEING EARLY EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING.

AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, AN ATV CROWNED WITH RADIO AND GLOBAL POSITIONING ANTENNAS PASSES. SHE FLAGS DOWN THE DRIVER, WHO LOOKS LIKE A SCIENTIST.

ALLAN: "My name is Jon Allan. I'm with the Department of Geology. We're doing part of our seasonal survey of the beach along Neskowin here to see how it's responding to the big storms we had."

ALLAN REPORTS HE'S SEEN EVEN WORSE EROSION UP THE COAST. HIGH WAVES PEELED BACK 20 FEET OF DUNES AT CAPE LOOKOUT STATE PARK. FIVE HOMES HAVE TUMBLED INTO THE OCEAN SINCE THE BEGINNING OF DECEMBER AT APTLY–NAMED WASHAWAY BEACH IN WASHINGTON.

ALLAN: "The Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington in particular, are experiencing very high waves compared to what they were 20–30 years ago."

ALLAN AND A PROFESSOR FROM OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY COMBED THROUGH THE RECORDS FROM A NETWORK OF OFFSHORE WEATHER BUOYS. WINTER STORM WAVES THAT USED TO AVERAGE ABOUT 33 FEET HIGH, NOW TOWER 45 TO 55 FEET HIGH.

ALLAN: "So it's basically a 50–60% increase in the extreme waves in the last 30 years and most of it being in the last 10 years."

A RISE IN THE HEIGHT OF THE AVERAGE STORM WAVE WOULD RESULT FROM MORE INTENSE AND FREQUENT STORMS. BUT WHAT'S DRIVING THAT? IS IT GLOBAL WARMING OR ANOTHER LONG–TERM OCEAN CYCLE WE BARELY UNDERSTAND?

ALLAN: "Really, the jury is out on this. The driving force may be due to an over–warming in sea surface temperatures off the Japanese coastline, off the Russian coastline, basically fueling these storm systems."

ALLAN'S COUNTERPART MONITORING THE WASHINGTON COAST IS GEORGE KAMINSKY OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY. KAMINSKY IS MORE CONFIDENT OF A CLIMATE CHANGE CONNECTION.

KAMINSKY: "The patterns of storms have changed over the past 40 years. And that's very much the same timeline that we are see a lot of the other changes that people working directly on climate change issues are seeing."

KAMINSKY AND ALLAN SAY COASTAL COUNTIES AND THE REGION IN GENERAL ARE GOING TO FACE SOME "SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES" DOWN THE LINE. RESIDENTS GUY SEIVERT AND LESLIE GORDON HAVE ALREADY STARTED THE CONVERSATION AT THE DISAPPEARING OCEANFRONT OF NESKOWIN.

SEIVERT: "At some point, communities like Neskowin are just going to have to ask themselves, what do you do to protect property? And what are the options here? That's the big question for us. What are the long term solutions to this?"

GORDON: "And are there any?"

SEIVERT: "Well there are. Ultimately, remove the property."

ALLAN: "There is that 'managed retreat' option. Certainly some states are actually adopting that approach."

WASHINGTON AND OREGON ARE NOT AMONG THEM. THERE IS TALK IN OLYMPIA OF REQUIRING COUNTIES TO CONSIDER CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS WHEN PLANNING FOR FUTURE GROWTH. IF GLOBAL WARMING CAUSES SEA LEVELS TO RISE, THAT MAY FURTHER COMPOUND COASTAL EROSION. I'M TOM BANSE IN NESKOWIN, ON THE NORTH OREGON COAST.

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