If you ‘sea’ something, say something: prepare for climate change by photographing king tides this weekend

When the first king tides of the season arrive this weekend, California’s coastline will be vulnerable to flooding — and it may not look all that different from projected sea levels as they rise in the coming decades.

To help understand the effects of these tides and rising sea levels in general, the California Coastal Commission is asking citizen scientists to take photos and document flooding this weekend as part of their ongoing King Tides Project.

Why study king tides?

King tides are essential precursors to higher sea levels and help us predict areas that may be prone to flooding now and in the coming decades.

“Having pictures of it helps us understand what is vulnerable to flooding today, what is already vulnerable to flooding during extreme tides and storms,” said Annie Kohut Frankel, who manages the King Tide Project at the California Coastal Commission. “But it also helps us understand what we will expect in the coming decades as sea levels rise.”

While it’s not clear exactly how much sea levels will rise — which will depend on how much people are able to limit their burning of fossil fuels — Frankel said current estimates point to about 3 to 2 feet of sea level rise in the coming years. several decades.

“If your favorite beach is underwater at high tide, within a few decades your favorite beach could be underwater every day,” she says. “If a road is flooded during high tide, that road will be affected by sea level rise.”

If you can’t make it to the beach in the morning, these king times will bring super low tides in the afternoon, so it can be a great opportunity to look for tide pools.

How to help

First things first: to take a photo of the king tides, you have to be there for them. This weekend’s high tides will occur early to mid-morning Friday through Sunday. You will find a map of high tide times along the entire California coast here.

Once you’re there, keep an eye out for higher water levels along beaches, cycle paths and roads, especially if you’re familiar with the area and have special things to discover.

Before taking photos, Frankel recommends making sure your location services or geotagging settings are turned on so scientists can easily find where you took the photo.

Then when it’s time to take a photo, make sure you put a frame of reference on the photo that shows how high the water is. You can keep the beautiful photos with a view of the horizon for your own personal collection.

“It’s not going to be the best photo to look straight out at the ocean where we can’t see how high the water is,” Frankel said. “I recommend looking up or down the coast so you can see the water in relation to a cliff or a sea wall or a pier or a staircase that provides access to the beach.”

King tides are also responsible for less obvious types of flooding beyond the beach. If you see a wetland completely covered in water, or if water appears to be coming from a manhole or storm drain near the beach, Frankel recommends taking a photo of that as well, as these will also help scientists determine the effects of rising tides to understand. .

“Identifying such places is very helpful,” Frankel said. “We don’t necessarily know where all those places are.”

If you can’t make it to the beach this weekend, there’s another round of king tides to observe from December 13 to 15 — and the California King Tide Project will be collecting data then, too.

Where to submit the photos

Once you have the photos, upload them to the California Coastal Commission website here. They are then added to a interactive king tides chart built over the years by citizen scientists from across the state.

You can also find one gallery of photo submissions from recent years on the Coastal Commission site. And in this reporter’s humble opinion, many of the photos, though taken for science rather than aesthetics, are quite striking in their own right.

“We can’t help it that the California coast is beautiful,” Frankel said. “We are planning for the future, we understand the challenges and vulnerabilities, but we also value these special places that we love.”