Help document rising tides this weekend

The Bay Area will get a preview of California’s future this weekend as “king tides” roll in.

The gravitational tug of the moon and sun, not climate change, is responsible for the extreme tides. But researchers say the tides provide a glimpse of what the Bay Area could look like in the coming decades as the warming Earth continues to raise sea levels.

Bay Area organizations, including Point Blue, are inviting the public to document and visualize where birds go during the king tides this year. The next king tide events will occur Sunday, December 13th through Tuesday, December 15th.

Take a walk along a San Francisco Bay trail, record the birds you see and submit your list and photographs. Your bird list (photos and descriptions encouraged) can be submitted to eBird where Point Blue scientists can access the lists from your king tide survey. Photos of the flooded trails can be submitted on the California King Tides Project website.

Work is being done by the San Francisco Estuary Partnership to address sea level rise. The Partnership’s overall work is guided by the development and implementation of the Estuary Blueprint, a vision for the estuary’s future. The partnership’s host entity is the Association of Bay Area Governments, which is staffed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.