Infrastructure protectionVisualizing climate change in the Bay Area
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger unveils the CalAdapt Web site — a Web site developed by the California Energy Commission in conjunction with Google and the Stockholm Environment Institute; the site contains a Google Earth tour, narrated by Governor Schwarzenegger, of projected impacts of climate change on California, including snow pack loss, increased risk of fire, and sea level rises; CalAdapt’s unveiling coincided with the release of the “California Climate Adaptation Strategy,” which outlines recommendations for coping with climate change in urban planning, agriculture, water conservation, and other sectors.
California’s Bay Area (described as “9 counties, 8 bridges, 7 million people”) is a beautiful, and earthquake-prone, area. The government of California says that earthquakes may not be the area’s only natural problem. What if you could see how different Solano County would be in 2100 if projected temperature increases come about as the earth continues to warm? What if you could see how much of Mission Bay, San Francisco, and Oakland airports and large parts of Alameda and San Mateo counties would be underwater if sea levels rose four feet by 2100, as some global-warming models project?
This is the goal of CalAdapt, a Web site developed by the California Energy Commission in conjunction with Google and the Stockholm Environment Institute. The initiative was unveiled last Wednesday by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at an announcement on Treasure Island (large parts of Treasure Island will also be under water by 2100, according to the projections).
New York Times’s Armand Emamdjomeh writes that it may be too early to make real estate decisions based on projected climate change, but it is interesting to wonder where in the Bay Area might be the best place to be if the worst scenarios prove accurate.
Still in the prototype stage, CalAdapt currently contains a Google Earth tour of projected impacts of climate change on California, including snow pack loss, increased risk of fire, and sea level rises, narrated by Governor Schwarzenegger.
Included in the tour is a map of areas vulnerable to rising sea levels in the San Francisco Bay, focusing on critical infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, and toxic waste facilities that would be vulnerable. Emamdjomeh notes that Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, along with much of the shoreline of the bay in Silicon Valley, are one of the most vulnerable areas.
Much of the data was taken from a report by the Pacific Institute, which estimates that 176,000 people will be at risk in San Mateo and Alameda counties alone. CalAdapt’s unveiling coincided with the release of the California Climate Adaptation Strategy, which outlines recommendations for coping with climate change in urban planning, agriculture, water conservation, and other sectors.
