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

To help understand the effects of these tides and sea level rise more generally, the California Coastal Commission is asking citizen scientists to take photos and document the flooding this weekend as part of their King Tides project in progress.

Why study king tides?

King tides are a vital insight into sea level rise, helping us predict areas likely to be flooded today and in decades to come.

“When we have photos of them, 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 expect as sea levels rise over the coming decades.” »

While it’s not clear exactly how much sea levels will rise — it will depend on how much humans are able to limit their burning of fossil fuels — Frankel said current estimates are about 1 to 2 feet of sea level rise over the next few months. a few decades.

This photo, taken in 2020 in Avalon on Catalina Island, shows how close parts of our coastal infrastructure are to being underwater.

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Courtesy California Coastal Commission/King Tides Project

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“If during a high tide your favorite beach is underwater, within a few decades your favorite beach may be underwater every day,” she said. “If a road is flooded during high tides, it will be affected by sea level rise.”

If you can’t get to the beach in the morning, these king tides will result in very low tides in the afternoon, which could be a great opportunity to search for tide pools.

How to help

First things first: to take a photo of king tides, you’ll need to be present for them. High tides this weekend will occur early to mid-morning Friday through Sunday. You can find a map of high tide times all along the California coast. here.

Once there, watch for higher water levels along beaches, bike paths and roads, especially if you know the area and can spot things out of the ordinary.

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

Then, when it’s time to take a photo, be sure to include a reference frame in the photo indicating the height of the water. You can save the beautiful skyline photos for your own personal collection.

“It’s not going to be the best photo to take looking directly at the ocean, where we can’t see the height of the water,” Frankel said. “I recommend looking up or down the shoreline so you can see the water in relation to a cliff, sea wall, pier or beach access stairway.”

Harbors, marinas and wetlands are also affected by sea level rise, even if they are not directly on the Pacific coast. This photo was taken at Bayshore Beach in Long Beach.

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Courtesy California Coastal Commission/King Tides Project

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High tides are also responsible for less obvious types of flooding off the beach. If you notice a wet area completely covered in water, or if water appears to be leaking from a manhole or storm drain near the beach, Frankel recommends taking a photo of that area as well. , because it will also help scientists understand the effects of rising tides. .

“Identifying places like that is really helpful,” Frankel said. “We don’t necessarily know where all these spots are.”

If you can’t make it to the beach this weekend, you’ll be able to see another round of king tides on December 13-15 – and the California King Tide Project will also be collecting data then.

Where to submit photos

Once you have the photos, upload them to the California Coastal Commission website. here. They will then be added to a interactive king tide map built over the years by citizen scientists across the state.

You can also find a gallery of photo submissions from past years on the Coastal Commission website. And in this reporter’s humble opinion, even though the photos were taken for scientific rather than aesthetic purposes, many of them are quite striking in their own right.

“There’s nothing we can do about it, the California coast is beautiful,” Frankel said. “We plan for the future, we understand the challenges and vulnerabilities, but we also appreciate these very special places that we love.”