GOOD news for surfers, bad news for beach lovers—California’s waves are
getting bigger. Research has shown Atlantic waves growing over the past few
decades, but data for the Pacific has been patchy. Now Nicholas Graham from the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego has used a collection of wind
speed data to back-calculate stormy wave heights for the past 50 years. He and
his colleagues found the biggest waves in southern California have grown by up
to 2 metres since 1948, making them about 35 per cent higher. Surprisingly, they
also found that wind directions have shifted to…
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