UW, Seattle Public Library, Seattle Public Utilities collaboration uses VR goggles to visualize sea level rise in Seattle

The VR experience begins by explaining how gases like carbon dioxide create an invisible blanket around Earth, trapping solar radiation. The user can hold up a magnifying glass that makes Earth’s atmosphere appear blue. Later in the experience the narrator explains how glaciers in Antarctica, right, contribute to rising seas.
University of Washington/The Seattle Public Library
The VR experience begins by explaining how gases like carbon dioxide create an invisible blanket around Earth, trapping solar radiation. The user can hold up a magnifying glass that makes Earth’s atmosphere appear blue. Later in the experience the narrator explains how glaciers in Antarctica, right, contribute to rising seas.

A new project uses virtual reality to help communicate what climate models are predicting: Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing Earth’s temperature, melting glaciers that could create many feet of global sea level rise by the end of this century.

The Our Future Duwamish project, available to community groups through The Seattle Public Library, uses Oculus Quest 2 goggles to help viewers imagine rising seas from a vantage point along the South Seattle waterway.

“Creative, interactive communication tools like virtual reality experiences offer a powerful way to spark conversations and action around climate change by helping show how a global-scale issue shows up in a very real way in our own communities,” said project leader Heidi Roop, who began the effort at the UW Climate Impacts Group and is now at the University of Minnesota.

The headsets and accompanying booklet are available as of this spring for checkout by community groups, such as Boys and Girls Clubs, youth groups or 4-H Clubs, which agree to take responsibility for the equipment. The Seattle Public Library is looking at more ways to make the experiences available to the public.

The VR experience builds on a Seattle Public Library project that used historical photos, maps and artifacts to show the history of the Duwamish River — from times when the Duwamish Tribe used the waterway for transportation, through the industrial pollution of the 1900s, to today’s ongoing cleanup effort. It extends the timeline to a future in which the riverfront is clean but rising sea levels lead to more flooding of coastal and lowland areas.

Read more at UW News »