This Black Friday, while Americans enjoy their opulent consumption, take a break with a yardstick. Go to the waterfront for high tide, which will occur a little before 11:30 a.m. (the exact time depends upon your location). An 11.3-foot-high tide is due to occur. One of the highest tides of the year, though by no means the highest. It reached 5 inches higher back in June.

The lower piers along Portland’s Commercial Street will begin to flood, along with Dock Square and Ocean Avenue in Kennebunkport on the way to the Bush compound on Walker’s Point.

With your yardstick, add 5 inches for the highest tide that has occurred in 2022. Then add another 12 inches for the amount the sea level will rise by 2050 due to the glacier melt from heat already absorbed by the world’s oceans – regardless if the world went to zero carbon emissions yesterday.

As reported in Scientific American’s November issue, the scientists studying the Thwaites glacier, the “Doomsday glacier” in Antarctica, have been learning a lot the last few years. Within the next 10 years, Thwaites will no longer be grounded on a rock ridge that is acting like a girdle, preventing the breakup of this 13,500-foot thick glacier the size of Florida. Its breakup, which will add 2 feet to sea level rise, is likely to happen fast, in years or decades rather than centuries because it largely rests on water not land.

Look around and see how much more will flood with water 3.5 feet higher than this Friday morning’s tide.

Carlton Wilcox, P.E.
New Gloucester