How drought could make sea-level rise worse
In the first decade of the Cold War, California was in a drought. The coastline north of Los Angeles retreated inland by several hundred feet. Less water flowing to the ocean meant less sediment swept down rivers to replenish the beaches that the waves, left to their own devices, would eat away over time. … [R]esearch published last year by earth scientists Julie Zurbuchen, Alexander Simms, and Sebastien Huot … revealed that on timescales of decades, the southern California coastline often grew and shrank with natural cycles of drier and wetter periods …