Shifting Shores is a project that builds on Storm Event, an award-winning climate communication experiment.
Shifting Shores aims to illustrating the impact of climate change on coastal erosion through various factors. It highlights the rising sea levels due to melting ice caps and warmer seawater, which lead to more intense coastal flooding and erosion. The site also addresses the increased severity and frequency of rainstorms, which contribute to rapid shoreline degradation. Additionally, it explores how changes in ocean currents, influenced by warmer temperatures, affect sediment distribution and erosion along coastlines. Finally, the website touches upon the issue of ocean acidification, resulting from higher carbon dioxide levels, and its effect on weakening coral reefs, which are vital for protecting coastlines from erosion.
In essence, "Shifting Shores" provides a thorough and creative introduction to the different aspects of climate change that are collectively accelerating coastal change. The underlying approach of using HTML canvas to articulate environmental science was pioneered during the Storm Event project.
About Storm Event
As temperatures rise, so does the risk posed by storm events. Raindrops increase in size, rainfall becomes more intense, and storms present a larger threat to life and habitat. Though the urgency surrounding the climate crisis has become increasingly recognised, its underlying science remains complex and not easily accessible. Storm Event is an online experience designed to address this by reducing the complexity of climate science into an interactive communication tool.
To create the perfect storm, audio was painstakingly recorded from hundreds of individual raindrops of different impact mediums, velocities, and sizes. Using climate model predictions, these files were statistically synthesised and combined with a sonic blend of white noise, brown noise, and sampled thunderclaps. This layering process produced several rainstorm tracks that illustrate how storms will sound under different climate change scenarios. To deliver a multisensory user experience, each of these tracks is accompanied by visual representations of storms and facts conveying the link between climate change and extreme weather risk.
An integral feature of Storm Event is our interactive sliding scale, which enables the user to set the level of projected climate change and observe its potential effects. By allowing the user to determine which climate outcome is displayed, we hope to emphasise that it is within our control to choose how the future will look, as we all possess agency and responsibility to shape the climate through action and decision.
The key ambition of Storm Event is to communicate the climate crisis through the intersection of science and art: to provide at once an evidence-backed cautionary tale of climate change, as well as a visually engaging illustration to inspire climate action. We hope to offer our users a beautiful yet potent understanding of the calm before the storm.