"A new study finds the world’s great surf breaks are vulnerable to climate change. In Malibu, the problem is more specific: a coast with few defenses, with a record El Niño winter closing in."
"On a clean summer swell, the wave at Malibu’s Surfrider Beach arrives from the south, wraps around a cobblestone point and unspools toward the pier in a long, shimmering wave that can carry a surfer for hundreds of feet. It breaks slowly, forgivingly, over rounded stones that were delivered by Malibu Creek across millennia.
The beach plays an outsized role in American and surf culture, inspiring the films “Gidget” and “The Endless Summer” and the songs of the Beach Boys. The point produced the longboarding style that still bears the place’s name: In Australia, longboards are called “Malibus.”
Kassia Meador has been reading this wave for nearly 30 years. She was 15 the summer she first paddled out at Surfrider Beach, and she has spent the decades since becoming one of the most recognizable longboarders in the world. She calls it, without hesitation, the best wave on the planet."
Kate Waxman reports for Inside Climate News September 27, 2026.
