Photographers Document King Tides

 

Vacationers, nature lovers and other people are using their cameras to document the effects of extreme high tides. By doing so, these men and women are helping¹ scientists predict what rising sea levels will mean for coastal² communities around the world.

The volunteer photographers are taking pictures of an unusually high tide: the king tide.

King tides take place about two times a year in coastal areas when the sun and Earth's moon align³. The alignment⁴ increases the gravitational pull that produces the normal rising and falling of the sea.

The volunteers' goal is to capture how high the waterline gets and where all the water goes. The volunteers then upload the images for use by scientists, policymakers and even city planners.

The pictures show where flooding affects some roads, and offer clues as to whether it is safe to build new housing.

The first of these King Tide Projects involving the public began in 2009 in Australia. The idea has since spread to coastal areas in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Mauritius and other nations.

Flooding from king tides helps to show how rising sea levels will affect coastal communities, said Peter Ruggiero, acting⁵ chief of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute. He added that warmer ocean water and bigger storms could make those changes more intense.

Skip Stiles is the executive⁶ director of a not-for-profit group called Wetlands Watch. It helped organize 700 people to document a king tide in the U.S. city of Norfolk, Virginia in 2017.

"For us, the king tide offers a look at where the water will be in about 2050," about 30 to 46 centimeters above normal levels, Stiles said.

His group's efforts have since grown into a computer software program that uses crowdsourcing to gather images and find flooding.

"What we're finding is there's a real appetite for this data," he said.

Some of the King Tide Projects are operating under the direction of nonprofit groups, while others work with state and local governments. They all have the same goal: to educate the public and provide a clear example of how climate change will affect everyday life.

Marina Psaros helped develop California's King Tides Project.

"A lot of the conversation around climate change was what was happening far away and not about what people were going to be experiencing in their own lives," she said. "The goal of the project was to get people thinking more about climate change locally instead of just polar bears."

When Auckland, New Zealand, organized its first king tide photo event, people shared pictures of flooded areas and roads with local government officials. Some of the images were used to develop a plan to build up a popular beach that was slowly being washed away.

Last year, the group expanded the program to include a series of tide gauges⁸ that citizen scientists inspected, said Ben Sheeran, founder⁹ of the New Zealand King Tide Project.

"There's no eureka moment where it all comes into play, but it's an evolving database¹⁰ of information that's there when needed," he said.

Words in This Story

align – v. to organize things so that they form a line or are in a correct position

gravitation – n. technical : the natural force that causes things to fall towards the earth

upload – v. computers : to move or copy (a file or program) from a computer or device to a usually larger computer or computer network

clue – n. a piece of evidence; information used to solve a mystery

crowdsourcing – n. the act or process of obtaining information from a large number of people (usually on the internet)

appetite – n. hunger

conversation – n. oral exchange of observations, opinions, or ideas

gauge⁷ – n. an instrument used to measure something

eureka – interjection. used to express surprise or excitement when a discovery has been made

1 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

2 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

3 align   

vt.使成一线，结盟，调节；vi.成一线，结盟

参考例句：

• Align the ruler and the middle of the paper.使尺子与纸张的中部成一条直线。
• There are signs that the prime minister is aligning himself with the liberals.有迹象表明首相正在与自由党人结盟。

4 alignment   

n.队列；结盟，联合

参考例句：

• The church should have no political alignment.教会不应与政治结盟。
• Britain formed a close alignment with Egypt in the last century.英国在上个世纪与埃及结成了紧密的联盟。

5 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

6 executive   

adj.执行的，行政的；n.执行者，行政官，经理

参考例句：

• A good executive usually gets on well with people.一个好的高级管理人员通常与人们相处得很好。
• He is a man of great executive ability.他是个具有极高管理能力的人。

7 gauge   

v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器

参考例句：

• Can you gauge what her reaction is likely to be?你能揣测她的反应可能是什么吗？
• It's difficult to gauge one's character.要判断一个人的品格是很困难的。

8 gauges   

n.规格( gauge的名词复数 )；厚度；宽度；标准尺寸v.（用仪器）测量( gauge的第三人称单数 )；估计；计量；划分

参考例句：

• A thermometer gauges the temperature. 温度计可测量温度。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The fuel gauges dropped swiftly. 燃料表指针迅速下降。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

10 database   

n.数据库 （=databank）

参考例句：

• I discovered some new information in the database.我在资料库里发现了一些新信息。
• We planned to build an online database.我们计划建一个联机数据库。