Waves and Beaches: The Powerful Dynamics of Sea and Coast

by Kim McCoy, Willard Bascom

Overview

The Bestselling Classic Updated for Surfers, Sailors, Oceanographers, Climate Activists, and Those Who Love the Sea

First published in 1963 and updated in 1979, this classic was an essential handbook for anyone who studies, surfs, protects, or is fascinated by the ocean. The original author, Willard Bascom, was a master of the subject and included a wealth of information, based on theory and statistics, but also anecdotal observation and personal experience. It brought to the general public understanding of the awesome and complex power of the waves.

This revision from Kim McCoy adds recent facts and anecdotes to update the book’s relevance in the time of climate change. One of the most significant effects of global warming will be sea-level rise. What will this mean to waves and beaches, and what effects are we already seeing? New text and photos cover events such as the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, Hurricane Katrina flooding of 2005, and the 2011 earthquake and resulting devastation in Fukishima.

As well as students, surfers, and the general public, this updated edition of a beloved classic is an essential handbook for climate scientists and ocean activists, providing clear explanations and detailed resources for the constant battle to preserve the shore.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938340963
Publisher:	Patagonia
Publication date:	03/16/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	54 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

Read an Excerpt

Preface to the Third Edition

Big whorls have little whorls,

which feed on their velocity

And little whorls have lesser whorls,

and so on to viscosity.” - L. F. Richardson

This Third Edition of Waves and Beaches celebrates the ongoing relationship of the sea and the land in the 21st Century. The nature of breaking waves and beach formation have not changed; the heat of the Sun creates the wind and its energy lives as a wave until it dies upon the shore. However our measurement techniques, instrumentation and interactions with the waves have changed. The number of surfers, divers and people living in the coastal areas have all grown immensely. The size of ships and the number of offshore structures have grown into a web of international commerce which influences all humans. These changes now affect urban planning, large scale funding and political decision making - all upon a rising sea level. By understanding the origins of such dynamics, societies can respond to coastal changes and manage the expectations and wellbeing of its members.

The Cascade of Wave Energy

This third edition of Waves and Beaches also expands its scope with understanding of the changing waves of cascading energy affecting our planet.

In the Beginning, the first release of energy was immense; tumbling whorling waves of energy radiated outward. Subatomic particles paired with partners and organized into elements. Those elements courted companion elements and spawned chemical compounds. As the universe swirled, gravity cleverly gathered matter into galaxies, formed spinning solar systems beaded with planets, ours has been gifted and shielded by water.

All of the Earth, its waters, land and atmosphere are beating with wave energy. It is part of a marvelous display of the ebb and flow of energy since creation – since the 'big bang' if you prefer. For billions of years, waves of energy, juggled by gravity, have continually heated and cooled; stirring our planet's geology, chemical brews, atmosphere and waters.

Water stabilizes our climate. It takes energy to change ridgid water (ice) into flowing liquid. It takes even more energy to change liquid water to a cloud of gas (water vapor). Earth's great seasonal harmonies are subtle balances in the amounts of water, ice and water vapor. This stability has aided civilization for most of the last four thousand years.

Before that time, histories of changing climate are contained in the Polar ice-cores from both Greenland and Antarctica. These histories contain waves of warm and cold climate, each closely related to the amounts and types of gasses in our atmosphere. Closer to the Equator, a million years of coral reefs, oceanic sediments, tree rings and plant pollen data all tell us matching stories – it is an irrefutable narrative of our planet's ancient oceanic circulation and atmospheric weather patterns.

A cascading flow of energy connects everything. It influences the formation of continenents, earthquakes, the strength of the sun's rays, volcanic eruptions, the amount of ice, sea level, human population dynamics, types of atmospheric gasses, ocean circulation patterns, seasons, the warm-cold meanders of the jet stream, winds, ocean waves, beach erosion and sand formation. All are interlinked and essential.

These essential roles have been disrupted by rapid population growth, the use of fossil fuels, damming rivers, changing sediment loads, diverting the flow of water through estuaries and deltas as we contaminate aquifers with chemical pollutants. There is no alibi. The world's oceans are experiencing more intense hurricanes, rising sea levels, coastal erosion, storm surges and saltwater intrusion into our freshwater aquifers. The waves and beaches of the world are elevating their battle during this swiftly transforming era, the most turbulent time since the 'rise of humanity'.

This third edition of Waves and Beaches will help you take action.

“Gravity is the viscus force of the universe; culture is the viscous force of civilization.” – KMC

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A beautiful, comprehensive resource for anyone drawn to understanding the ways and wonders of our oceans, plus, this edition includes important updates for comprehending the ocean during climate change." – Liz Clark, author of Swell Swellvoyage.com @captainlizclark

“An understanding of the complex relationship between sea and coast is essential to anyone who loves the ocean. In easy-to-access text and stunning illustrations, this book provides.” – Nainoa Thompson, Polynesian Voyaging Society

"Waves and Beaches is a rich compendium of history, geology and physics—an indispensable book for anyone who wants to know more about the ocean." — Dr. Joe MacInnis, author of Deep Leadership, Essential Insights from High-Risk Environments

"The essential guide to waves, winds, and the wonders of the watery world." James Nestor, New York Times bestselling author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art and Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves

"I had the pleasure of knowing Bill Bascom for nearly 50 years. Always great company, he was never without an agenda of wonderful ideas. Of all his books, I consider Waves and Beaches his best. Now his good friend Kim McCoy has updated and reformatted it. The final result will add many years of life to this classic. Kim has done a great service for the ocean community and the lay reader as well." — Don Walsh, Captain USN (Ret), PhD, Oceanographer and Explorer

Interviews

Not so long ago, surfers and seafarers gathered around squelchy transistor radios at dawn listening to reports of Aleutian storms. A wet finger to the breeze, long seaward gazes – they knew the waves were formed by wind. For most folks, everything else was a mystery. What happened below the surface? Why did the beach fill up with sand in the summertime then retreat to sucking stones in the winter? Why did waves jack up at some breaks but roll in slowly at others? Why do we have to dredge harbors and jetties? How can wave channel laboratory research apply to the real world?

In 1945, the United States Army had the same questions. The World War II Waves Project of the Universityof California at Berkeley had one objective: to scientifically study the surf zone to find safer methods for amphibious landings on enemy-held beaches. When young mine engineer-turned-oceanographer, Willard Bascom, joined the project, he’d never seen the ocean. His introduction was less than pacific:

“I well remember on the bleak day we approached Eureka that John stopped his Dukw (amphibious truck) and motioned for me to join him. He pointed out across Humboldt Bay and the sandspit separating bay from ocean to a sort of white froth on the horizon a couple of miles away where an occasional geyser shot up. ‘Some of those breakers must be thirty feet high – plunging. Look at them explode!’ Then, in a matter-of-fact way, ‘That’s where we’re going to work.’”

After the war, Willard did not retreat inland – he’d found his muse. “Is there anyone who can watch without fascination,” he writes in his 1964 book Waves and Beaches, “the struggle for supremacy between sea and land?” He devoted his life to understanding the ever-shifting milieu we simply call the “beach” and left behind a book that can be appreciated by seasoned oceanographers and layman beachcombers alike. He peppered plenty of nerd bait (equations, graphs) into highly approachable discussions ranging from tides to tsunamis to wave dynamics to human attempts to control shorelines to, yep, surfing. It’s like kicking it on the beach with an unpretentious scholar who’s just as mesmerized by it all as you are.

The eminent oceanographer and adventurer, Kim McCoy, encountered the first edition of Waves and Beaches in graduate school when it was assigned as a text book. It inspired him to pursue professional wave research where Bascom’s left off and, in the late ‘90s, they met and formed a friendship built on their mutual interests in ancient history and waves. “As a father would interact with a son,” McCoy recalls, “he would assign me ‘homework’ or ask me, ‘How do they measure this now?’” Less than a year before his fatal car accident in 2000, Bascom handed McCoy the second edition of Waves and Beaches and said, “Read this and tell me what it needs.”

“That was the spark,” McCoy says, “the beginning of my transition from Bascom’s student to his collaborator.” In this new edition – his last homework assignment – McCoy keeps “the spirit of adventure alive” and updates the text with data and analysis about our warming Earth so it might speak to a new generation of climate activists. “Human-caused climate change,” he writes in the new edition, “will re-position our beaches, coastlines, aquifers and waterways at rates unseen for thousands of years and never before experienced by human civilizations.” By preserving Bascom’s illuminating voice and adding current information and insight about the environmental crisis, McCoy has created a powerful resource in the fight to save our home planet.

Editorial Reviews

Willard Bascom is a man with a sense of humor as well as an ability to write in such a way that any layman can understand what he’s talking about. Anyone who loves beaches and the sea, and wants to understand them better will enjoy this book. —www.tsunamirangers.com

From the Publisher