State encourages public to photograph 'king tides'


December 20, 2011 · Updated 9:04 AM 

The Department of Ecology is inviting the public to take photos of higher-than-usual winter tides expected to hit Washington state coastlines starting Wednesday.

Above-normal tides, sometimes called king tides, will occur in coastal regions from late December through late January. Puget Sound tides are scheduled to hit the high-water mark from Dec. 27-29 and again from Jan. 13-17.

The Department of Ecology encourages the public to take photos of the tides and upload the pictures — with date, time and location included — to the Washington King Tide Photo Initiative's Flickr page.

A map and schedule of the area's king tides can be found at the Department of Ecology website.

King tides offer a glimpse of how rising sea levels from global climate change could affect the state's coastal areas, the Department of Ecology reports. As global temperatures rise, the oceans warm and expand, ice caps melt and more precipitation falls as rain instead of snow.

A sea level rise could affect Washington in a variety of ways, including intensifying flooding, increasing coastal bluff erosion, and threatening coastal freshwater areas and connected underground water supplies.

 

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