Daniel J. Hoover Jeffrey A. Hansen Patrick L. Barnard 2011 <p><span>The nearshore bathymetric evolution of a high-energy beach at the mouth of San Francisco Bay, California (USA), was tracked before, during, and after the powerful El Niño winter of 2009-10 to quantify alongshore bar formation and migration as well as the magnitude and alongshore variability of cross-shore transport. The observed deep-water winter wave energy was among the highest ever recorded in Northern California, peaking during a 7 day period in the middle of January 2010 with a mean deep-water significant wave height (</span><span class="roman">H</span>_{<span class="roman">s</span>}<span>) of 5.5 m, and a maximum&nbsp;</span><span class="roman">H</span>_{<span class="roman">s</span>}<span>= 9&nbsp;</span><span class="roman">m</span><span>. The extreme forcing during the study period resulted in local bed level changes that approached 5 m, cross-shore bar migration of &gt; 250 m, ~3 m alongshore trough deepening, and a net gain of ~1.6 million m</span>³<span>&nbsp;of sediment to the nearshore profile over the 7 km alongshore extent of the survey area, leaving beach sand levels severely depleted. The morphological evolution observed during this El Niño winter may serve as a proxy for future coastal response to climate change if current trends of increased storminess continue for the U.S. West Coast.</span></p> application/pdf 10.1142/9789814355537_0105 en World Scientific Nearshore bathymetric evolution on a high-energy beach during the 2009-10 El Nino winter text