Cartifact, Inc. and Greening Point, Inc. today announced the launch of a new public educational resource, RisingOceanLevels.com. The site provides an interactive map showing how various climate change scenarios could change our coastline through sea levels rising. The site features high quality, visually attractive interactive maps accompanied by educational information about climate change science and links to further reading. The initial release provides maps for the San Francisco Bay area and a detailed focus map of the Santa Cruz to Salinas portion of the Monterey Bay.

Cartifact developed RisingOceanLevels.com to help the public visualize the impact of possible climate change scenarios on the location and nature of future shorelines. A scope-like lens is available to view aerial imagery of the real-world roads and buildings that, depending on local topography, could potentially be inundated by the rising global ocean levels, waves, storm surge and flooding. Greening Point collaborated in the effort, providing conceptualization, environmental information and design assistance.

Cartifact President Graham Marriott said “We strive to make visually compelling maps that help people understand complex geographic data. Sea level changes resulting from global warming are an important public issue. We’re pleased to provide a new public resource to help people understand the risks associated with various climate change scenarios.”

Both companies emphasize that they are not making a prediction that sea levels will rise to a specific level. According to Greening Point CTO Michael Tilson, “we want people to learn about possible climate change scenarios, the science behind them, and the potential outcome of each. Some scenarios are fairly likely and have significant impacts. More extreme scenarios are unlikely in the near term, and yet there is a small but worrisome risk that these could occur with severe economic, social and environmental impacts. We hope to make a positive contribution to public dialogue on these issues.”

• Visit RisingOceanLevels.com

[Source: joint Cartifact / Greening Point news release]