To predict future coastal hazards, it is important to quantify any links between climate drivers and spatial patterns of coastal change. However, most studies of future coastal vulnerability do not account for the dynamic components of coastal water levels during storms, notably wave-driven processes, storm surges and seasonal water level anomalies, although these components can add metres to water levels during extreme events. Here we synthesize multi-decadal, co-located data assimilated between 1979 and 2012 that describe wave climate, local water levels and coastal change for 48 beaches throughout the Pacific Ocean basin. We find that observed coastal erosion across the Pacific varies most closely with El Niño/Southern Oscillation, with a smaller influence from the Southern Annular Mode and the Pacific North American pattern. In the northern and southern Pacific Ocean, regional wave and water level anomalies are significantly correlated to a suite of climate indices, particularly during boreal winter; conditions in the northeast Pacific Ocean are often opposite to those in the western and southern Pacific. We conclude that, if projections for an increasing frequency of extreme El Niño and La Niña events over the twenty-first century are confirmed, then populated regions on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean basin could be alternately exposed to extreme coastal erosion and flooding, independent of sea-level rise

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[1] Over 30 years of wave and beach survey data at Collaroy-Narrabeen Beach in southeast Australia are analyzed to investigate the extent to which shoreline variability within this coastal embayment is dominated by shoreline oscillations due to cross-shore sediment exchange or shoreline rotations due to alongshore exchange between the beach's extremities. Offshore wave data are derived from both buoy measurements and ERA-40 reanalysis data. EOF analysis of the monthly shoreline data suggests that the dominant mode of shoreline variability (60% of variability) is an onshore-offshore sediment exchange that is greater at the more exposed northern end of the beach than at the predominantly sheltered southern end. This mode is primarily associated with variability in wave energy/storms, which by the nature of the wave climate of this region chiefly occurs from the south-southeast. The secondary mode of shoreline variability (26% of variability) is a rotational signal between either end of the beach, which coincides with 24% of the offshore wave climate shifting between the south-southeast and east as well as changes in the wave period and wave energy/storms. A distinct annual cycle is identified in this rotation signal. It is concluded that alongshore sediment transport processes associated with embayment rotation is more subtle than previously thought and a refined conceptual model of coastal embayment variability in this region is presented highlighting the dominance of cross-shore sediment exchange processes. The dominance of cross-shore versus alongshore sediment transport processes, Collaroy-Narrabeen Beach, southeast Australia,