Twice a year, due to planetary alignment, the oceans experience more extreme tides than usual, known as king tides. However, as the warming atmosphere causes sea levels to rise, experts are warning that these king tides will not only become more extreme but also model what the future may look like — permanently.
What's happening?
Mercury News reported on recent king tides in Monterey, speaking with Annie Kohut Frankel with the California Coastal Commission.Â
"As sea level rises, the king tides will get higher and the potential damage that extreme high tides cause will be greater," Frankel said. "Soon the places we love so much — the beaches, trails and coastal communities — will be underwater or flooded at least twice a year."
And while the tides are currently manageable, she emphasized that as they grow in severity, they "give us a very visceral way to understand what the future may look like."
Emma Greenbaum of San Francisco's Exploratorium told Mercury News, "There's a lot of vulnerability to people's homes and businesses from rising sea levels around the Bay Area."
Why are rising sea levels so concerning?
Mercury News also spoke with UC Santa Cruz professor Gary Griggs, who emphasized that the long-term impacts of rising seas — rather than the immediate effect on king tides — are what should really concern residents.
"King tides are not a real problem, but the high tides in the future are going to be a real problem," he said. "For each community, we need to figure out how we are going to respond, rather than react at the last minute."
After all, he emphasized, "There isn't a seawall big enough that can hold back an ocean."
What's being done to protect communities from rising sea levels?
While it's difficult to motivate people to uproot their lives based on a threat that may not materialize for decades, the safety of many coastal areas will depend on their ability to act now.
"We cannot put this on the backburner," Greenbaum urged. "We need to plan the adaptations now rather than later when it will be too little, too late."
These approaches include everything from experimenting with floating homes to restoring wetlands, which function as natural drainage systems.
Of course, a critical factor in the success of navigating this issue is whether or not the world meets its gas pollution reduction goal.
With the enormous output of human-generated toxic gases, the planet's temperatures have accelerated at astonishing rates, triggering phenomena like rising sea levels.
While much of the responsibility rests with governments and corporations, individuals can help by putting their money, their vote, and their own actions where their views are — from switching to renewable energy to buying fewer mass-produced items.
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