With climate change, king tides could be the new normal

King tides returned to the San Francisco Bay this week, and although flooding across the region was mild, they raised the specter of an increasingly tenuous relationship between water and infrastructure in the region.

“It’s a little less than we expected, but it’s still scary that the water is rising,” said Diane Livia, a volunteer with the environmental nonprofit Bay Keeper.

High tide in the Bay Area was at 11:59 a.m. on Thursday, and there were few reported impacts.A coastal flood warning was issued for bayside cities up to Santa Rosa and Petaluma.

King tides are a natural regularly occurring phenomenon as old as time, where–three to four times a year, in conjunction with the moon’s cycles–the tide rushes in further and with more power than normal. They generally occur in the winter, usually January and December. Low-lying areas are flooded, and the water poses a minor nuisance at best, a heavy flooding threat at worst.

In Marin, a popular boardwalk running through a tidal marsh will be covered with water. Narrow beaches become inaccessible. Underpases might flood.

But as climate change pushes sea levels higher, the flooding apparent during king tides could soon become permanent. Current projections estimate that the Bay Area could rise by approximately two feet by 2050, which would put our permanent shoreline at the water level seen during king tides.

The tides are a reminder that the region is enormously affected by the power of water, with much of the region’s critical infrastructure concentrated along the shoreline. In recent weeks, the region’s coast has seen powerful waves, flooding, and abnormally high king tides. That flooding may ultimately serve as a glimpse into the future.

Staff Photographer Jane Tyska contributed reporting.

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