King tides offer look at the coast’s flooded future with sea-level rise
From 1,000 feet above, you can see surf pounding long sequences of seawalls and riprap rocks protecting homes, the ocean sometimes appearing to threaten structures, despite the installed barriers. Where there are cliffs with no homes, the waves gnaw away at the bluffs, moving the beaches at their base farther inland. The extreme king tides of the past few days occur only once or twice a year, but they offer a glimpse of what normal tides will be eventually be doing daily as the result of rising sea levels.