September 29, 2014

Map Monday: Will Global Warming Drown Your Hometown?

You may recently have read about climate change and North Carolina for all the wrong reasons, entailing laws designed to forbid the mentioning of the term "climate change" as well as outright banning measurements of sea-level rise.

By Tali Trigg

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

You may recently have read about climate change and North Carolina for all the wrong reasons, entailing laws designed to forbid the mentioning of the term “climate change” as well as outright banning measurements of sea-level rise. At the heart of this drama, is elevation mapping technology applied to climate change to better understand future changes to the environment.

In the case of North Carolina – its coast and the Outer Banks in particular – the state appears to be at particular risk, but what about other US cities? Well, several studies have attempted to detail exactly what will happen to different cities across the US, turning Alaska and Detroit into the most popular destinations by 2050, and underlining Miami’s vulnerability as the most “at-risk city in America”.

In this week’s Map Monday, I’d like to share a new mapping technology which helps answer the question: will global warming drown your hometown? Actually, it’s not a new technology, it’s a “repurposed” technology if you will, namely Lidar, or Light Detection and Ranging, which gives you detail on elevation mapping by location.

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Have a look at Surging Seas and #DrownYourTown. It makes for scary gamification of climate change, but perhaps it’s a needed wake-up call for some? Share your thoughts on your hometown's future below.

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