King Tides Webinar

Meg Reed, atop Cape Perpetua.

Every year for the past decade, CoastWatch has organized the King Tides Project in partnership with the Coastal Management Program of the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development.  For much of that time, the person we have worked with has been Meg Reed, Coastal Shores Specialist with the Coastal Management Program.  Meg will be our guest for an upcoming CoastWatch webinar, taking place on Tuesday, May 26, from 11 a.m. to noon.

We work with Meg on the Oregon branch of an international citizen science project that documents the reach of the highest tides of the year (the “king tides”).  Volunteer photographers capture the highest extent of these tides, which reveals current vulnerabilities but, more important, gives us a preview of what will be a “new normal” as sea level continues to rise due to climate change.  Typically, the King Tides Project focuses on the three highest-tide sequences of a given winter; in 2019-2020, though, there were four such sets of high tides that volunteers went out to shoot.

Hosted by Jesse Jones, CoastWatch’s volunteer coordinator, the webinar will survey the project’s history and review the past winter’s edition.  Meg will share photos and videos of these high tides, discuss what insights they provide, give an overview of this decade-long effort, and explain how to participate in the future. She and Jesse will also look ahead to the 2020-2021 edition of the project.

To join the webinar, contact Jesse at jesse@oregonshores.org.  She will send an invitation to the webinar.  You don’t need a Zoom account of your own to participate.

For more information about the webinar or the King Tides Project, contact Jesse at the above e-mail address or at (503) 989-7244.