University of Connecticut Climate Resource Exchange

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Surging Seas: Find Out What Sea Level Rise Will Mean For You!

Climate Central has created a web application that displays hypothetical effects of sea level rise around the country. Appropriately dubbed Surging Seas, this interactive map allows you to zoom to individual states and pan the map or search by area code. Once you find your area of interest, you can see the amount of land inundated by different values of sea level rise on the map and view statistics of population, homes, and land area by county or city (similar to my post last month about Dukes County, MA). Water level is adjusted simply by a slider on the left of the page, and as an area gets inundated, a white mask dissipates, revealing aerial imagery of the "flooded" area. Along with this dynamic map, Climate Central also produced a report on the threat that sea level rise presents to the United States.
Surging Seas is very cool and easy to use - I definitely recommend checking out how some of your favorite coastal places may be altered by the sea in the future! Try it below!