How did Holocene climate affect the coast?
Climate proxies tell us that El Niño events were extreme but infrequent in the period 12-8,000 years ago. A long paleoclimate record from an alpine lake in Ecuador shows a systematic change in El Niño activity during the Holocene. Between 8,000 and about 5,000 years ago, winters were dry. Starting around 5,000 years ago, El Niño floods became more frequent and the intervals about 3,000 and after 2,000 years ago were particularly stormy. Variation in El Niño frequency over the last 10,000 years. The shift in wave climate around 5,000 years ago would have rapidly eroded beaches on exposed east/west trending coastlines and on beaches that had been sheltered from the earlier La Niña wave climate by headlands and the Channel Islands. Sediment flux to the coast would have increased most markedly in the southern cells due to increased precipitation after the long, dry period 8-5,000 years ago. Explore the Holocene evolution of the Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, Oceanside, and Silver Strand litto
