Consistent measurement of water levels is extremely important for understanding long term trends in sea level. This is especially true near the coast where extreme events and even gradual changes can affect where people live. In order to better understand how tides and water levels have evolved in the Columbia River and elsewhere, our group is analyzing old tide logs from the 19th century. These data are then compared to their modern counterparts to determine if any changes have occurred. Surprisingly (or not) the modern data doesn’t always exist so we sometimes have to gather it ourselves.

In the Columbia River, for example, we have installed a new tide gauge in Astoria (see figure), located approximately where measurements were taken over 150 years ago. Now that we have contemporary data the adventure can begin…

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