SURF'S UP BIG SWELLS GREAT TO RIDE, BUT THEY MAY SPELL TROUBLE FOR COAST DWELLERS.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

Dude, surf's up.

In the last 50 years, Southern California's waves have progressively gotten bigger.

Those white-capped icons of the California coast have swelled almost 35 percent larger than those surfed by an earlier generation, according to a San Diego researcher whose findings leave puzzling questions about the state of ocean waters.

``From surfers' point of view, it's probably a good deal,'' said Nicholas E. Graham at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. ``But from the point of view of coastal erosion ... it's important for that respect and certainly needs to be looked into.''

Graham, who admits to catching waves when he's not studying them, said he set out to put in numbers what he and his peers saw on the shore - waves were, like, bigger.

Looking at wintertimes's extreme waves - those whoppers in the top 5 percent of their peers - researchers found them to be about 3 feet taller than 50 years ago.

Waves stretched from about 9 feet to 12 feet, thanks to stronger winds coming from stronger and more frequent storms, which rained down on the Pacific those winter months for reasons still unclear.

But one surfer's dream set is a homeowner's nightmare: As bigger, badder waves pound the coast, their wear and tear on the shore and bluffs could contribute to beach erosion and should be monitored, the researchers said.

Chad Nelsen, environmental director at the Surfrider Foundation, said while surfers love the big waves, the potential erosion of the beach - when the sandy part between water and shore becomes so narrowed down there's none left - can be a problem along Southern California's developed coastlines.

``Beach erosion is not bad inherently - beach erosion is a natural process that has been occurring forever,'' said Nelsen, explaining that on its own the ocean would just shift the coastline.

``Beach erosion is a problem when humans get in the way. ... We get in the way with our structures and houses. Those are threatened by beach erosion because the waves are going into people's living rooms.''

He added: ``Surfers are obviously going to love the waves. It's unfortunate we've had some bad development practices that result in this threat to our beaches.''

Despite the raw data collected by UCSD, Los Angeles-area surfers said the study is all wet.

Studio City surf instructor Frank Caronna said the waves measured taller when he first paddled into the waters off the Orange County coast more than 20 years ago, compared with what he sees today as he gives surf lessons in Santa Monica.

``I remember me and my friends, we talk about it - waves aren't nearly as good as they were when we were in high school,'' Caronna said.

The proof he says is not in the water but on land - the remains of the wooden piers that collapsed up and down the coast during the El Nino rampage of 1983.

``We haven't had storms since '83 that have done any damage. When you see piers breaking, there's quite a bit of storms out there and the waves are big,'' he said.

From the Los Angeles County Fire Department's Malibu-Zuma lifeguard station, Bob Janis has to agree.

Janis, an ocean lifeguard specialist who's been surfing for decades, says waves just aren't what they were when he was a kid growing up in Santa Monica, when you'd have days on end of big swells.

``(I) just remember getting a whole lot more waves years ago. ... I mean the '80s, the '70s easily, for sure,'' said Janis, 51, who started surfing as a 10-year-old and now lives in Malibu.

``I remember several winters, several summers with humongous surf. ... Oh, you know double, triple over head,'' a surfer's unit of measure that means ``basically you take a 6-foot person and double it.''

And, he added, ``there's still talk of the humongous swell of '69.''

About the research he said, ``In this area of Southern California, it's been my observation that their observation is not true.''

Graham agrees with his surfing brethren in the short run - the late 1980s to mid-1990s have been bummer years to catch a big one, and nothing like the peak surfing years of the late 1970s to the first half of the 1980s.

``Eighty-six to '95 were fairly quiet ... actually went back to the conditions there were in the late '60s,'' he said.

``You have to look at the whole record,'' he said. ``If you went in 1950-'55, then '95-'00, you probably would notice the difference.''

The scientists studied just winter waves, from December through March 1948-98, working backward to build a model of what waves would have been, and then comparing those to buoy readings taken from points in the ocean today.

Extreme waves in the winter of 1948-49 hit heights of 2 1/2 meters, or about 8 feet, then climbed to almost 3 1/2 meters, or about 11 feet, in 1958 before dipping back down by 1965.

But by 1978, the whoppers climbed to almost 4 meters, about 13 feet, and stayed in that range through the fabled El Nino winters of the early 1980s. Waves plummeted again to earlier depths in the late 1980s only to start climbing again to that range by the mid-90s, according to the research.

``There was a period of very large waves in the late '70s and '80s, then it declines. Certainly some years in the mid-'90s were fairly substantial,'' said Graham, who co-authored the report with Henry F. Diaz at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Diagnostic Center.

They also found that since 1975, wind directions shifted and gusts are now coming from a straight westerly direction, rather than northwesterly, which can be felt on Ventura's coast. Winds no longer are blocked by such natural barriers as the Channel Islands, they said.

But while the researchers can talk long about the surf, don't ask about the weather.

They know waves come from winds, and storms help create winds, but they just can't explain for certain why there were more storms and stronger winds over the past 50 years.

Maybe it's the warming of the ocean temperature that comes from the greenhouse effect. Or maybe it's simply natural climate variations, they said.

Graham said it's just hard to know - and makes it difficult to predict future trends.

``If it's natural, we don't know what's going to happen. If it's greenhouse warming, we really don't know,'' he said.

He adds most greenhouse warming simulators have shown storms will eventually die down, which would lead them to believe waves would simmer down, too. ``We speculate maybe this is a transient effect,'' he said.

Nelsen from the Surfrider Foundation said the big waves make it all the more pressing to address beach erosion strategies.

Big surf is believed by some to come from El Nino - as it did during the 1982-83 winter storms - and some also believe El Nino is one result of global warming, he said.

As the waves pound the shore and chisel away at coastlines, such developed areas as Southern California need to consider new options other than seawalls or similar barriers that try to halt the ocean waves from hitting structures, only to leave the water taking over the beach.

``We were naive when we let those people build in Malibu,'' he said.

``What it means is that there's even more reason for sound coastal development policy,'' Nelsen said. ``(As) the waves are getting bigger, there's ever more reason to get smart.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, chart

Photo:

(1 -- color) Researchers from UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography found that wave size has increased 35 percent along the Southern California coast over past 50 years.

(2 -- 3 -- color) Rick Stark, above, of Ventura sends up a spray while skimboarding last week at Deer Creek Beach near Los Angeles/Ventura County line. Left, a washed-out section of bike path at Surfer's Point in Ventura is blocked off to beach traffic.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

Chart:

SURF'S UP