Thursday October 17, 2024
Knee Deep Times —
When winter storms sent 20-foot waves barreling towards Santa Cruz, California in January 2023, the sea met none of the natural storm breaks it might have encountered on the East Coast: no crests of intricately carved coral reefs, no tangled roots of mangrove forests, no conglomerations of millions of oyster shells. Waves from the open ocean encounter fewer obstacles to sap away their energy before slamming into Californian cliff sides — and in the case of the 2023 winter storms, they gained plenty of power to toss around 8 million pounds of boulders piled against one stretch of coastal road like toys in the surf.
In the minutes before they break, California waves may roll over rocky reefs with submerged shale boulders and seafloor spires — and just before reaching the shore, they often pass through kelp forests.
For decades, the question of how much kelp forests might soften waves like other natural “blue infrastructure” was difficult to resolve. New research suggests an answer. However, efforts to understand how much (and whether) kelp can help shape California’s ocean coasts still have ground to cover, just as the stakes — and threats to the undersea forests themselves — are growing higher.