Help preview sea level rise with upcoming winter “King Tides”, beginning Jan 19

NOTE: If you choose to participate in this project, please also share your King Tide photos with Coastsider by emailing them to [email protected]. You can get the times of local high tides from Coastsider’s daily tide table, or from NOAA’s 2011 forecast.

Seasonal high tides occurring within the San Francisco Bay and along the outer coast on January 19 (9:19am in Princeton according to NOAA) and 20 (10:07am) and February 16 (8:18am), 17 (9:10am), and 18 (10:01am) will provide a preview of what residents might experience regularly in the future as a result of rising sea levels.

You are invited to share photographs of areas that are known to flood and erode and / or areas where the high water levels can be gauged against sea walls, jetties, bridge supports, dikes, buildings or other coastal infrastructure around the Bay Area. Members of the public who photograph these high tide events along beaches, roads, parks and estuaries are invited to submit their images to a Flickr site maintained by the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR).

The NERR and its partners are interested in using the images to document the coastal impacts Bay Area residents are likely to face with increasing frequency as sea level continues to rise. “Before and after” pictures showing average water levels and the extreme high water levels for the same location will be particularly useful.

Submission details: Please include your contact information and geographically reference the photos with specific locations (GPS position, if possible), orientation, date and time of day. Consider what kind of licensing to add to your photos. We suggest the “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.” This license will allow us to feature your photography in presentations, websites, publications, etc.

The photographs and associated information will be used to create a map that will catalog coastal areas that are currently affected by extreme water levels. A report containing a selection of the submissions will be available after the event. Photos may be used in presentations, websites and publications on sea level rise impacts, coastal initiatives and climate action.

climate change, sea level rise and the king tide

Increases in global sea levels have been recorded by NOAA tide gauges for many years, and more recent observations have been collected by NASA satellites. The steady rise has been attributed to both a warming of the oceans and contributions from melting glaciers and land-based ice sheets. Climate modeling combined with these direct observations suggest sea level rise will continue well into the future with significant implications for the Bay Area’s shoreline. Analyses conducted by BCDC show that increases in sea level in San Francisco Bay could be as high as 16 inches by mid-century, with upper estimates of more than 55 inches of rise by 2100.

Understanding the future impacts from sea level rise and creating tools and information to assist local governments and California citizens is a priority for BCDC and federal partners at the NOAA Coastal Services Center, Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, California Coastal Commission and the San Francisco Bay NERR. For additional information on Bay Area climate change impacts, preparation, and adaptation please see http://www.bcdc.ca.gov/planning/climate_change/climate_change.shtml.

E-mail us at [email protected] Find us on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/groups/bayareakingtides/ Find us on the web at www.sfbaynerr.org/ctp/KingTides/