Help document changing sea levels in the East Bay --

Share your photos with the King Tides Initiative

Sea level rise due to climate change  is projected to profoundly affect San Francisco Bay. While no one knows how great or how rapid the change will be, our current highest tides give us some insight into the likely "new normal" in this century. High tides and storms will push water levels higher still. With homes, industries, roads, bridges, pipelines, airports, sewage-treatment plants, landfills with buried toxics, and wildlife refuges lying low and close along the Bay, we need to plan and begin to adapt. 

The California King Tides Initiative encourages members of the public to document the highest seasonal tides, or "king tides" -- tides that occur when the full or new moon aligns with the sun to maximize their pull on ocean waters. These citizen-science efforts are multiplying on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Please consider contributing photos!

By uploading photos, along with information on when and where they were taken, to the King Tides Initiative Flickr Group, you can help visualize the effects of rising waters, create a record of ongoing processes, and provide images useful to environmental groups, agencies, scientists, and the public. So if you like photography and nature, bring your camera to local shorelines during these high tides. Storms will bring the highest water levels and dramatic waves, but the initiative also needs quiet documentary photos -- along with low-tide reference shots if convenient. Look for photos that make it possible to gauge water levels against some reference, such as a road, bridge, or large rocks.

The highest tides of 2011 were mid-morning of Dec. 23 and 24. You can see some Friends of Five Creeks photos here. Tides will rise almost as high Friday, Jan. 20 (about 8:50 AM), Saturday, Jan. 21 (about 9:40 AM), and Sunday, Jan. 22 (about 10:30 AM). A last set of extreme tides, not quite as high, will be Feb. 6-8. For times, check online tide charts or use information on the California King Tides Initiative web site, where you'll also find detailed information on planning your shoot, uploading photos, and more.

At right are two maps with ideas for likely spots in the East Bay near Friends of Five Creeks' area. For example, at "Radio Beach" along the north edge of the Bay Bridge you'll find a beautiful sandy beach and restored marsh -- as well as the amazingly low-lying bridge approach. On the new loop trail around the West Contra Costa landfill, you'll find great views -- as well as Richmond's low-lying sewage-treatment plant and a landfill with buried toxics.

In many creeks and channels, tides rise and fall surprisingly far inland, well beyond the reach of salt water. There is no accurate record of these "heads of tide." Friends of Five Creeks would like to document them. Thus, we hope that folks will photograph Codornices Creek at Eastshore Highway (east frontage road) or Second Street and Cerrito Creek at the foot of Albany Hill, as well as Wildcat and San Pablo Creeks at the Richmond Parkway between Gertrude and Parr.