The surf community in Santa Cruz isn't alone in noticing alarming shifts in how waves are breaking. So, there's less potential and opportunity for kids to you know, gently get their feet wet into the mellow waves of Cowells and have the opportunity to start surfing." "These days with less rain and less sediment being deposited into the ocean through river mouths and just less storms bringing sand in here to Cowells, there's not as much of a sandbar anymore. "I do believe that waves can go extinct," Burns said. He says the very waves he and so many others carve across in Monterey Bay are changing, and not in the way they should. "Winter generally starts later now and ends earlier, so there's less of a window to surf around here," Burns said. The effects are taking form, from the erosion of the cliffs that help shape the breaks along Steamer Lane to the shifting of seasons that bring swells to the California coast. "I think just growing up and seeing the cliffs around here eroding day by day and just understanding that just one simple rock change or one part of the cliff that breaks can change a wave." "I don't know if there's an exact moment," Burns said. Like generations of surfers before him, Burns has built his life around observing and understanding the coastal environments that make his passion possible - a way of life that he says is increasingly being altered by climate change. "We're able to see firsthand the changes that climate change is having on the ocean." "As surfers, you know, we're kind of the stewards of the ocean," Burns said.
For professional surfer Shaun Burns, faces in the lineup aren't the only thing he notices when paddling out at his local surf break in Santa Cruz, California.
0 kommentar(er)
