California's shoreline is about to get a stealthy shove upward. Scientists say a massive "Kelvin wave" of warm Pacific water, supercharged by a powerful El Nino, is expected to reach the state within days and could lift sea levels by as much as a foot for months, per the Guardian. Unlike the surf you see breaking on the beach, a Kelvin wave is what the Desert Sun calls a "propagating disturbance"—a vast, slow-moving bulge of water that stretches thousands of miles and travels along the equator, then splits north and south when it hits South America, pushing higher water levels toward the US West Coast.
Researchers at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say the setup is straightforward: Weakened or reversed trade winds allow a thick layer of warm water sloshing in the western Pacific to roll back toward the Americas. That natural process is colliding with a century of background sea-level rise—about 8 inches so far—and what may be the strongest El Nino in at least a millennium. With higher tides forecast around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and El Nino-linked storms likely, California officials are bracing.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has already declared a state of emergency, and coastal regulators are urging homeowners to shore up drainage and inspect properties vulnerable to flooding before winter waves test how high that new floor of ocean water can go. Still, despite the most recent warnings, one NOAA researcher says Kelvin waves aren't that uncommon, and that multiple small "pulses" have already reached Southern California's shores. "They always happen—it just depends on what else is going on whether we pay attention or not," Andrew Leising tells the Orange County Register.
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