 Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii research in Manoa. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Mark, and today we're going to hear something really topical. We have a guest, Katie Hinson, who is an outreach specialist for the UH Manoa Sea Grant program. So, Katie, welcome to our show. I'm sure a number of our viewers have already heard about King Tides, but there's a lot that we can discuss here because this is a really topical subject that we're starting to see a lot of these very high tides. So, first of all, tell us a little bit about yourself. You're an extension specialist, is that correct? Yeah. So, thank you so much for having me on the show today. I'm really excited to be here and we're always excited to get the chance to get the word out about King Tides and some of the citizen science that we're doing related to King Tides. So, I am a Sea Grant extension agent with the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College program. Basically, Hawaii Sea Grant is a collaborative of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Hawaii and we work on all different kinds of coastal conservation issues, doing outreach and education and research. Some of the viewers may have actually encountered Sea Grant at Hanama Bay, for example. I believe we have a big outreach effort there. Yeah. So, the Hanama Bay education program is run through Sea Grant. So, we do lots of outreach and education work with them and I focus primarily as an outreach specialist on kind of being the two-way link between the community and the research. So, both working to make sure that the questions and the problems addressed by research at the University of Hawaii and other academic institutions or federal agencies address issues that the community is concerned about and then also bringing back information and questions from the community to researchers. Right. So, Sea Grant is much broader than simply looking at tides, for example, but its fisheries, its shoreline change is how do we interact with the ecosystem as well along the coastline? Yeah, absolutely. If there's something related to coastal natural resources, we probably touch on it. So, we do sustainable tourism work, we do sustainable aquaculture work, we do lots of work around beach erosion and coastal hazards, tropical cyclones. And not just here on Oahu, but I understand obviously the other neighbor islands but also some other places around the Pacific. Is that correct? Yeah. So, the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College program also does work in American Samoa and the Republic of the Marshall Islands and then there's also a Guam Sea Grant College program. So, there are sea grants in every coastal state as well as Puerto Rico and Guam. So, there's 33 programs all around the country. But you're here today to tell us all about these king tides. Yeah. And anybody who is out at the beach on Friday or Saturday will have seen the effects of the king cut king tides. But can you just give us a little bit of the background? What is a king tide? Yeah, absolutely. So, this is a question we get a lot. A lot of people wonder what is a king tide and often why am I just seem to be hearing a lot about it now this summer. So, king tide is quite simply the non-scientific term that's used to describe the highest high tide of the year. So, we probably remember from back in the days of fifth grade science that we have high tide and low tide and that depends on the gravitational pull of the moon. And so, king tides, when we get a king tide there are two things that are happening. The first is that the sun, the moon and the earth are in alignment. So, the moon's gravitational pull is working along with the sun. They're kind of pulling together and that's making the tides a bit higher than normal. Often in a new moon or a full moon, we'll see this. And I think you brought along a slide which might sort of illustrate what we're talking about. So, if you have the first slide and then, Katie, if you can just walk us through. We're looking at two different diagrams. Let's do the first one on the left. So, the one on the left is just kind of explaining the very basic that we see high tides on the side of the earth where the moon's gravitational pull is pulling and then the opposite side. And we're looking at the earth from above the North Pole and the moon is drawn much closer to the earth than it really is. But those sort of light blue areas are showing where the high water is in the direction of the moon and the low tides are 90 degrees away, correct? Yes. Yeah. And that's just a regular high and low tide throughout the year. Exactly. Okay. And then on the right hand side, lurking off to the top right of the image, we've got the cartoon of the sun, right? And so this is what you were saying where you've got the moon and the sun in alignment. So it's giving us an extra gravitational tug, is that correct? Yes. So the sun and the moon are in essence working together. They're pulling together. And that's making the tide, the high tide a little bit higher than we would normally see. So the second thing that happens that isn't necessarily shown in this graphic is that we also see the moon and its closest point to the earth and its orbit. So I'm sure you know better than I do, but the basic way to think about it is that the moon orbits the earth not in a perfect circle, but in oval shape. Yeah. And at some points in time, it's a bit closer to the earth than others. So when we have the sun, the moon and the earth are lined up together, and the moon is at its closest point in its orbit to the earth, that's when we see a kingtide. And of course, its gravitational effect is stronger when the moon is closer to the earth than when it's far away. So this is why we don't get kingtides every month, presumably, it's just depends on the orbit of the moon around the earth, as when it coincides with being in line with the sun, is that correct? That's correct. So in the Hawaiian Islands, we usually see kingtides once in the summer months around June, July, and once in the winter months around November, December. And we had kingtides today is June 26. And we had kingtides here, like June 23 and 24. Previous month in May was around about the 28th or something like that. So it's about every 27 days. So May is interesting because that was not actually what we would traditionally call a kingtide. So one of the reasons why we've seen the kingtides have so much impact this year is because we're seeing unusually high water levels in the Hawaiian Islands. So I don't know if we have the second slide. Yes, let's turn to the second slide, which I think shows these are the tidal charts where the fishermen, official women will go or canoeists. So explain to our viewers, or those who are just listening, what is it we're looking at here? Yeah, so on the horizontal axis, it's time. So this is the period of time, I believe, from that you were just referencing May 25 to 27 this past month. And then on the vertical axis, we have the height of the tide in feet. And what's interesting about this chart is that the blue line is what what Noah predicted the tidal height to be. And green is the actual observed tidal height during that time. Okay, and as we've got really tiny, tiny numbers, the height in feet varies by about three feet from the minimum to the maximum in this particular chart. Is that great? In this case, yeah. And the thing that's important here is that gap between the blue and the green. So since the beginning of for a couple months now, we've been seeing water levels that are anywhere from six to 10 inches higher than we expected them to be. So that's kind of why we saw these really high tides in May that looked like they were a king tide, even though the whole sun, the earth, the moon dance wasn't doing what we originally think of. That's actually June and July. So this coming up July 21 and 22 will be our second summer king tide. But we saw these really high water levels in April and May, because of that extra discrepancy between what we predicted the tide to be what we actually saw. And this is an ocean wide phenomenon or is it concentrated just in central Pacific where Hawaii is located? Or do we see this all like in the Western Pacific? This is quite unusual. Is it related to El Nino? It's related to a couple different things. So I like to think of it almost as like a layer cake. There's all these different factors that are stacking on top of each other to contribute to the water level that we see on the shoreline. So one of those things is sort of Pacific wide trends and sea levels like the El Nino cycle. Another factor are what we call eddies, which are sort of circular currents that can be very large, they can be miles wide. And we had a group of these big circular currents that have elevated sea levels at their center moving through the Hawaiian Islands during April and May. So that's part of what brought the levels up higher. And then on top of that, we also have global sea level rises as a result of climate change. So all these things stacking together is what's making that that gap between observed and the predicted tide. And the advanced publicity for some of the the outreach that I heard was that what we're starting to see with these king tides because of global warming, where the volume of water in the oceans increasing, this may become much more normal, and we'll have even higher king tides and higher regular tides. Yeah, so the thing that's great about king tides and the reason that we developed this this outreach citizen science project, which is called the Hawaii and Pacific Island King Tides Project, is that king tides give us a bit of a glimpse into the future of what our shoreline will look like with sea level rise. So what today we experience as something unusual, the highest high tides of the year will be our our norm, our average tidal height in the future under conditions of global sea level rise. And you say it will become the norm. But we'll still get king tides on top of the future norm. So this is not going to get any better. Yeah, so one of the things we get asked is, for example, well, what would happen if we had a big rainstorm or some sort of storm surge at the same time as one of these king tides? And if these king tides are the norm, if they're what we're seeing more and more frequently as a regular high tide, then that's more and more likely to happen. And it will exacerbate the impact of storm surge or tsunami or hurricane or any of those typical episodic hazards that we expect. Right. And so you've had this big public outreach, just on a Wahoo or other Hawaiian islands as well? Yes. So the project is the is the Hawaii and Pacific Islands king tides project. So we we're trying to recruit citizen scientists from all across the Pacific region. So not just the Hawaiian Islands, but also American Samoa, Guam, Republic of the Marshall Islands. We've had a really great participation on a Wahoo, but also some really fantastic participation across all of the Hawaiian Islands. So I think at this point, we have about 300 people signed up to participate in the project. Maybe I should backtrack and talk a little bit about what the project itself is. Well, we'll save that for the second half of the show. Okay, got over excited. So yeah, we are we are trying to collect information on the tide impacts across the entire region. Okay, well, we're getting very close to a break now, Katie. So in the second half, I'd like to see some examples of these king tides, maybe hear a bit more about the outreach that Sea Grant is doing. But let me just remind the viewers, you're watching Think Tech Hawaii research in Manoa. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis Mark, and my guest today is Katie Hinson, who is educational outreach specialist with a UH Sea Grant program. I'm going to be back in about a minute. Aloha, my name is Steven Philip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. And I'm the host of shrink wrap Hawaii where I talk to other shrinks. Did you ever want to get your head shrunk? Well, this is the best place to come to pick one. I've been doing this, we must have 60 shows with a whole bunch of shrinks that you can look at. I'm here on Tuesdays at three o'clock every other Tuesday. I hope you are to Aloha. We all play a role in keeping our community safe. Every day, we move in and out of each other's busy lives. It's easy to take for granted all the little moments that make up our every day. Some are good, others not so much. But that's life. It's when something doesn't seem quite right, that it's time to pay attention. Because only you know what's not supposed to be in your every day. So protect your every day. If you see something suspicious, say something to local authorities. And welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii research in Manoa. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Mark. And our guest this week is Katie Hinson, who is an educational outreach specialist with the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program. Now, Katie, we had a lot of discussion about these tides in the first half of the show. Let's take a look at some of the examples, because we've got some fascinating illustrations. Like, as we go through these, tell me why they're important? Why should people care about sea level rise? Yeah. So these are images that that were submitted to the project. And they show some of the examples of the impacts of king tides on local shorelines all across the Line Islands. And the thing that's important to understand about these images is that these are similar to what we expect to see from sea level rise. This one here looks as if we got diamond head in the background, looks kind of like the Royal Hawaiian's Beach, right, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel or somewhere along there. Yes. So this comes from Waikiki in May 2017. And what it's showing is that we get things like beach erosion, high wave run up inundation that impacts access to the coastline, it impacts recreation and tourism, which certainly has some some economic implications. Okay, maybe go on to the next one. And this one looks particularly disconcerting. Is this on Maui, I believe? This comes from Maui also in May of 2017. And just thinking about how many homes and roads and businesses that we have that are built quite close to the coastline in Hawaii, those are all places that are going to see potential impacts from sea level rise in the future. We had Matt Barbie on the show a few weeks ago, and he was talking about beach erosion and the long term trend, say in Waikiki for sea level rise. But here in this illustration, we're almost seeing it happening today. Is that correct that I certainly would feel a little disconcerted if I was living in that house and my nice beach had gone away. Yeah, and I think it's absolutely something that people who live near the coastline are recognizing now. This is not a problem that's in the distant future. This is something that we're seeing today. And let's go on to another one. And this is also on the Wahoo, is that correct? Yes, this comes from the Heia Fish Pond in Kanyohi Bay, and sort of designed to give an example of a cultural or historic site that's threatened by sea level rise. So this is you can see the ocean is overtopping the fish wall, and these fish ponds rely on a really ingenious balance of salt and freshwater to grow limu or algae and produce fish. So when you have that overtopping of the sea wall, it changes all different things about the temperature and the chemistry of the fish pond. So it really can impact these cultural sites. So the viability of having a fish pond impacting marine life, which may require not quite salt water, not quite freshwater, but this balance between the two. So we're seeing some economic impacts, not only in tourism, Richard Waikiki, but also in terms of, say, potential concerns of people actually living at the coast with their houses. And here now we're starting to see the ecosystems being affected. So there's a variety of concerns which are being illustrated by this. I think we've got one or two others. And now this is interesting. I was out on the Alawai Canal in May, and I was looking for this sort of thing. What is it we've got here? It looks like a regular road. Yeah, so what you can see that little bit of white in the storm drain is actually waves coming up through the storm drain system and depositing sand from Waikiki Beach on the road there. So it's made itself a little mini beach. This is where the beach wants to move to. So thinking about infrastructure, there's impacts not only to above ground infrastructure, but all that stuff that's under our feet that we don't see on a daily basis. So our storm drain systems, our wastewater systems, all of that is impacted by this sea level rise. Right, right. So is this Cowakawa Avenue or somewhere like that? This is a good question. I think this is near the outrigger near the outrigger. So basically, obviously, as the tide rises, you get all of the saltwater intrusion beneath the surface along the storm drains, streams or whatever. So there's a lot of infrastructure that might be a risk. Absolutely. And as the tide rises, it brings the water table up with it as well. So we will also see flooding in low lying areas that aren't necessarily right on the coast just because the water table is rising. And in coastal plains in Hawaii, our water table is already quite close to the surface. So having it bring it up higher just makes those areas that are prone to flooding just much more at risk. Right. Yeah. So your work seems to be very similar to what Matt was telling our viewers a few weeks ago in terms of the potential for the impacts of sea level rise. And I think there's one more slide. We've got a quick glimpse of this character here. Yeah, we mentioned that the fishponds were at risk. We've got a monk seal here. What's the concern? Yeah, so this is a monk seal on the highway in Maui just this month in June. And what's happened here is that his I believe it's a her actually that her normal beach lounging spot has been inundated because of the king tide. So the beach is completely underwater. So she's moved up. She's tried to move her habitat upland and the highways in the way. She doesn't much care about the highway. So that's where she's going to take her nap. So I think it illustrates this really good idea that we have a lot of valuable coastal habitat in Hawaii. And that habitat is going to naturally start to migrate inland as we see sea level rise. But people are in the way we have a lot of buildings and infrastructure and roads that have been built fairly close to the coastline. So we're going to have to figure out how to balance preserving those important human necessary spaces but also finding places for the habitat and creatures like the monk seals that rely on that coastal habitat to go to sea level rises. So as an outreach specialist, what do you tell the general public in terms of getting ready for future even higher tides? There must be some sort of takeaway that you have to give to all of these people. What do we do? Yeah, so as an outreach specialist, what I'm really interested in is hearing ideas from the community about what they think that we should do because they know these spaces much better than I do, much better than the researchers do, right? People have lived on these coastlines, they fish, they surf, they've spent time in these coastal areas for a very long time. So they know the vulnerabilities. They know what's going to be impacted by high waves. They know what's impacted by flooding. They know what kind of species are going to be impacted by sea level rise. And by and large, when you start to talk with them, they have ideas about what we need to do to prepare for that. So I think a lot of it is about having a conversation between the research and the communities who themselves recognize the vulnerability and are really ready to take action on that. Okay, so people have been living in the islands for many years, have some appreciation for the land and the ocean and interface of the shoreline. But then what do we do in places like Waikiki where mainly it's tourists, mainly there's a lot of development, or in Kakako, for example, where we've got this new urban center being developed, where there's not the historical knowledge. Do you see that there's problems in some of these areas, or are you hopeful that we'll figure it out and be okay in the next decade or so? I'm definitely hopeful. I mean, Hawaii is taking a lot of great action on policy level to try to address concerns of sea level rise and other climate change impacts. So one of the projects that Sea Grant is involved with is working with some of our partners in state government who are developing a sea level rise vulnerability and adaptation report. So basically taking maps and other sort of best available science about the impacts of sea level rise and incorporating that into our planning. So when we start to make decisions about where are we building new hotels? How are we retrofitting our houses? How are we investing in our infrastructure, our roadways, our sewer systems? We can start to incorporate the information about what we know the future is going to look like with sea level rise. So I think it's a pretty large scale, sometimes daunting problem, but the actual practices of adapting and preparing for this are about the every day decisions that we make. So tackling it at a local level might actually be the best strategy rather than trying to get Washington DC or even the state legislature to take the initiative. You think from what I'm hearing, you're thinking that the local communities, the people who really understand the land, really understand the ocean, that's where you see the most prospects. I think it's a both and, not an either or. Yeah, I think we need policy and action at the higher level because that is a lot of what sets our priorities in terms of how we make land use decisions, but we also need action at the local community level. I think Hawaii is a really great place to be working on these issues because we do have both of those. And having the best data that were available is clearly going to strengthen your case and I believe obviously the king tides aren't just in June. I believe we've got a little promo slide for you coming up if we can have the next slide, which will, oh let's move on. Here we go, here's the one I was thinking of. So as I said, it wasn't just last week, they're coming again. So tell me a bit about this slide and getting ready for it. What's the plan? Yeah, so one of the things that we're doing around these king tides is we have a citizen science project where we're asking everyday people to go out and take pictures of the king tides and their impacts. So all of those great images that you saw before, those were taken by regular everyday people who participate in this project. So it's a free smartphone app that you can download by going to this website PacificIslandsKingtides.org and you can take photographs of king tide impacts and researchers use those photographs to help them better understand sea level rise, to help them prepare for future sea level rise. It's used by... And our studio technician has just taken us to that website, so there we are. Isn't that fantastic? And I believe, Katie, having the general public sending these images is really helpful because Sea Grant can't be everywhere at the same time. So you really need to get an island-wide or statewide view of what the coastline is like, how high the water level is, looking inland to try and see if you've got the sewers which are having waves and that sort of thing. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I already touched on the idea that these king tides that are right now unusual are going to be the new norm in the future with sea level rise. So by taking photographs, by documenting the impacts of king tides, that helps us understand what our future looks like with sea level rise and is really helpful for researchers, resource managers, decision makers that are making those daily decisions about how we prepare for this. And your website, the link, and then we went to the actual website, can the general public actually see other people's images? So if a citizen scientist, if she's interested in trying to understand the impact of high tides, can go around into like a clickable map with all the photographs or a list for various localities? Yes, absolutely. We have both of those. So we have a clickable map, an interactive map, where you can go and see all of the photographs that have been submitted and then we also have a database that's searchable. So if I want to see all of the photographs of storm drain on Oahu during the June 2017 king tide, I can do that. Or if I want to see all of the beach images from Maui during the July king tide, I can do that. And we have at this point over 2,000 photographs in that database. And Sea Grant will maintain this website for the next king tide and then hopefully next year we'll be able to do a compare and contrast. Who knows what the ocean conditions will be like a year from now, but I think it'll be fascinating to sort of come back and say well this was the maximum tidal height in 2017. What was it in 2018 or 2020 or something like that? Yeah, absolutely. You know science is a marathon. It's not a sprint. So we want to be documenting the impacts of these king tide events long into the future, even beyond the the excitement that we had this past month with lots of great participation and attention. But definitely it's a it's a matter of continuing to document the impacts, continuing to get new observations and photographs. This is a great service that Sea Grant and yourself, Katie, have been performing for the community. Unfortunately we're getting near the end of the show, so let me just thank you. I'm your host Pete McGinnis-Mark and you'll be watching research in Manoa. Our guest today is Katie Hinson, who is an educational outreach specialist at the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College. Katie, thank you so much for coming in. We will look forward to the next spring as king tide in July. Hopefully it won't be too bad, but if it is we'll make sure we'll bring you back for an update. Well thank you all again for watching the show and we look forward to seeing you again next week. So bye for now.