Unusually high king tides expected in the Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO - Once again the semi-annual king tides season is upon us and video shows that this is slowly becoming a bigger event as it occurs and reoccurs in the Bay Area.
Waves lapping over the Embarcadero's sidewalks has become a familiar scene where the water had already risen as had other low-lying places around the Bay.
"Kind of surprising because yesterday, we had walked by and I notice the same area the water was down about three or four feet. Do, this is kind of unusual," said San Jose resident John Cimino.
The King Tides Project, is a decade old San Francisco effort to show the public how rising seas levels will impact seaside communities worldwide.
Marina Psaros is co-founder of the King Tides Project and author of the Atlas of Disappearing Places.
"As glaciers melt and as sea ice sheets melt and thermal expansion continues to increase rising waters, we'll continue to see more and more flooding," said Ms. Psaros. For now, king tides are somewhat of a twice a year novelty that temporarily block roads and creating once in a long while inconveniences.
"What it shows us today, the kind of flooding we might get only a few times during that kind tide season is what we'll be experiencing on a monthly or even a daily basis," said Psaros.
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Higher, more frequent tides will interfere with all forms of transportation as well as increasing cliff erosion. "It's gonna require a lot of investment and action," said Psaros. Make no mistake, we are talking about huge investments of the Build Back Better trillions scale, just to keep cities functioning.
"We do need to start thinking about how we live with some of these impacts; so that's the climate change adaptation side with how do we live with what we've created? And the mitigation side is: how to we prevent it from getting even worse," said Psaros.
We have no choice but to think of San Francisco and other coastal cities and towns more like Venice.