Art for climate education and adaptation
Digital Rising Waters!
Join us with your own virtual installations or RW selfie!
Virtual Local Installation
Select a site in your neighborhood, a famous landmark, or some other place. Snap or search for a picture, find the projected flood levels at that site, and add water to the image digitally or by hand. Upload the image via our “Upload” page and we will post it! You can tell your story there as well, under “Description,” so that we can share that with your photo! Where is the site? What does that location mean to you? Share your experience too, so we can go beyond “just the facts.” Don’t get us wrong, facts are great, but we also want your story!
Download slides from the United Nations World Oceans Day Workshop with Future Frogmen to view a past virtual installation.
RW Selfie
Take a selfie, pick a location (the selfie doesn’t need to be at that site). Show how high the water will be on you in that location in the future. Upload the image via our “Upload” page and we will post it. On the upload page, under “Description,” explain your assumptions: Where is it? When will the water be that high? Is it during a storm? Share your data sources. Tell your personal story there as well, so that we can share that with your photo. What does that location mean to you? Share your experience - we want to know why you chose this location.
Calculating Flood Levels:
Calculating flood projections is complex. For an easy way to look at scenarios, we recommend using Climate Central’s Surging Seas tools. To learn more about choosing datums, and why it is so complex, look here: https://vdatum.noaa.gov/docs/datums.html.
To understand the various factors such as sea level rise, storm surge, rainfall, and king tides, you will need to go to several sites and sources and dedicate some time to interpreting the data. You will have to make assumptions about how much we will reduce emissions and even how lucky we will be. You need to figure out each contributor to flooding and add them up. Bear in mind, however, that these are all projections, so there is no exactly correct answer to how high will flood waters be in a future decade. In other words, you may need to do some guesstimating!
Below are the steps you will need to go through to calculate flooding. Step three lists some sources for data to find out how much flooding there will be. You can also check with your local conservation commission or local climate resiliency resources. Sometimes local knowledge is better than relying on maps, so you may also go to a site you know, look at the high tide line, and add sea level rise, storm surge, and the additional height from king tide (highest tide of the year). If you can get rainfall estimates, add that too.
Find flooding from all sources. Add them up*.
*For coastal areas: (whichever ones apply): Sea level rise + storm surge + king tide + rainfall = total flood amount
*For riverine flooding: (whichever ones apply): river flooding + rainfall = total flood amount
Subtract how high your site is above the datum point of your sea level. For example: If you have a total of 9’ of flooding but your site is 6’ above the baseline used for sea level (e.g; mean high high tide or whatever your baseline data is) then you will see 3’ of flooding at that spot.
Resources to find flooding by various climate scenarios and dates:
Site Elevation on land: https://elevation.maplogs.com/
This tool allows you to find projections by location, date and severity of model. One of the best tools out there, but it has a limited number of locations. https://coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/tools/slr.html
You can map different scenarios and compare choices, and sort by projected CO2 reduction, year, amount of water, and other factors: https://sealevel.climatecentral.org/.
River flooding and rain projections: https://water.weather.gov/ahps/long_range.php
Storm surge and rainfall: Google the biggest storm you can remember near that site and you can probably find it.
Tides: You may want to add King Tide- the highest high tide of the year, look it up here: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/
4. Confirm or find additional sites:
note on this site: “Areas lower than the selected water level and with an unobstructed path to the ocean are shaded red. By default, areas below the water level but that appear to be protected by ridges (and in the U.S., levees) are not shaded.”
Case Study: Battery Park, New York City with step by step instructions - download the slides here (steps are below as well)
Find land elevation: Battery Park Elevation at the datum https://elevation.maplogs.com/ = 10’ above Mean Sea Level (used as the datum)
Find datums: MSL and Mean Higher High Water, https://tidesandcurrents.noaa. search for your location.
e.g; Battery, NYC: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/datums.html?id=8518750
Mean Higher High Water = 5.05’ (datum used by Surging Seas)
Mean Sea Level = 2.57’ (datum for land elevation from maplogs.com)
Site is 7.5’ above MSL
Site is 5’ above Mean Higher High Water
Find flood levels: Climate Central Surging Seas:
https://www.climatecentral.org/
https://sealevel.climatecentral.org/ search for New York
https://ss2.climatecentral.org/#12/40.7298/-74.0070?show=satellite&projections=0-K14_RCP85-SLR&level=5&unit=feet&pois=hide, check your assumptions
Find the bar graph (scroll down)
Flood levels by date:
2030 = 7.9’
2050 = 9.7’
2070= 12.4’
(Water level means feet or meters above the local high tide line (“Mean Higher High Water”) instead of standard elevation.)
Site is 5’ above MHHW, add flood levels and subtract land elevation as needed:
2030: 7.9’ – 5.05’ = +/- = 3’ above grade
2050: 9.7’ - 5.05’ = 4.65’ = 4’- 8” above grade
2070: 12.4’ - 5.05’ = 7.35’ = 7’- 4” above grade
Can I reach this height to install it? Yes- Yay!