Kelvin Wave — An 80s Power Ballad About El Niño & Sea Level Rise

Описание: An 80s power ballad about El Niño and West Coast sea level.

Yes, really. I made a synthwave music video explaining how a Kelvin wave crosses the Pacific, bends the jet stream, and raises sea level along the US West Coast, and why that matters more now than it did in 1983.

Every visual is rendered from real data. The water levels you see are actual NOAA tide-gauge observations from San Diego (station 9410170), not stock footage. The flood-day counts, the long-term trend, and the three big El Niño winters (1982–83, 1997–98, 2015–16) all come straight from the record.

And rising sea level means that the same El Niño that flooded the coast in 1983 now starts from a higher floor, which means more flood days from the identical weather.

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (as of September 2026) gives a very strong El Niño better than 90% odds this winter. Here it comes again.

Music generated with Suno. Video with Claude.

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Water level data: NOAA CO-OPS, San Diego, CA (9410170)
El Niño outlook: NOAA Climate Prediction Center
Greg Dusek · Dusek Coastal Science & Consulting