For nearly 60 years, Willard Bascom’s bestselling book Waves and Beaches: The Powerful Dynamics of Sea and Coast (Patagonia, March 16, 2021, ISBN 9781938340956) has been a go-to resource of surfers, sailors, oceanographers and anyone with an appreciation for the sea. But since the book’s original 1963 publication, a new wave – the wave of climate change – has vastly impacted ocean dynamics, coastlines and coastal communities. Refreshed for the 21st Century, Patagonia announces a new edition of Waves and Beaches to help readers take action in protecting our shores.
By understanding the origins of coastal dynamics and the unavoidable effects of global warming, we can anticipate and work to solve for devastating coastal changes, writes Kim McCoy, a noted ocean researcher and co-author of the third edition of Waves and Beaches. In the new book, McCoy presents compelling current research on the impact of rising ocean temperatures and sea levels, including coverage of events such as the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, Hurricane Katrina flooding of 2005, and the 2011 earthquake and resulting devastation in Fukishima.
“The elusive winds and waves of climate change have recast coastal dynamics; now clearly visible in scientific data covering periods of decades, centuries, and millennia,” says McCoy.
In the United States alone, rising sea levels threaten major cities such as Boston and New York. The science in this new edition gives urgency to why the Outer Banks, the Intracoastal Waterway, barrier islands, Gulf Coast and the Pacific coastline from Canada to Mexico – along with countless other highly- populated areas of the globe – must confront the rising seas.
The original author, Willard Bascom, was a pioneer and master on the subject of sea dynamics. McCoy met Bascom in the early ‘90s and the two had a long-standing friendship based on their mutual interest in the ocean. “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.”
Together the authors share a combined 70 years’ experience, along with thousands of miles of shoreline in 50 countries, studying and trying to understand the complexity of ocean dynamics. Speaking to the love and fascination for his life’s work, Bascom wrote in the book’s epilogue: “The inner peace that comes with the quiet contemplation of a beach on a still, calm morning or the feeling of exhilaration that comes from riding a great wave in a small boat is more reward than most ever know. Fortunately, the beaches of the world are swept each night by the tide. A fresh surface always awaits the student, and every wave is a masterpiece of originality. It will ever be so. Go and see.”
WILLARD BASCOM (1916-2000) was an engineer, adventurer and scientist, as well as a writer, photographer, painter, miner, cinematographer, and archeologist, who first proposed using Neoprene for wetsuits to fellow scientist Hugh Bradner. He authored several books, which include the topics of waves, geology, archaeology, poetry, and oceanography. In his book Deep Water, Ancient Ships he first proposed the hypothesis that anoxic water in the Black Sea would preserve ancient Black Sea shipwrecks. He led the first test drillings for Project Mohole, and was project director from 1960-1962. Bascom was a consultant to the Advisory Committee on Government Organization. He also served as the Technical Director of the Advisory Committee on Civil Defense of the National Academy of Science and National Research Council. He is the original author of Waves and Beaches, first published in 1963 and reissued in 1979 (Anchor).
KIM MCCOY(San Diego) is an oceanographer and adventurer who has been seduced by beaches and observed waves on all seven continents; smeared in the fluid mud of the Amazon, journeyed along the Mekong, Nile and Mississippi Deltas, traveled the Australian coastline, plunged into the Antarctic Ocean (without a wetsuit), crossed the Pacific, Atlantic, Drake's Passage on ships and sailed a boat from Africa to the Caribbean. His ocean research began where the land and sea merge - with surf zone wave dynamics and continues today with the coastal effects of climate change. Expeditions from the tropics to polar oceans with multinational academic, commercial and governmental institutions helped McCoy pioneer advances in instrumentation, underwater communications, autonomous underwater vehicles and free-diving. Educated in Germany, France and the US, McCoy was presented with the Scientific Achievement Award in 2018 for his work as a Principal Scientist with NATO in Italy. Prior to Italy, he managed Ocean Sensors, Inc., was the Marine Technology Society Chair for Oceanographic Instrumentation and was awarded several patents. He recently completed an Ironman and says he will continue to swim, dive, surf, rock climb and paraglide until motion stops, viscosity ceases, buoyancy is overwhelmed.