Speculative Sea

source: benedikt-grossde

Works across disciplines, is an interaction designer and likes to write programs that generate all kind of visual output. He currently lives and studies in London.

Benedikt Groß is a speculative and interaction designer working across disciplines. He is fascinated by the relationships between people, their data and environments. This study has led to his belief that design, driven by an understanding of those relationships, can improve people’s lives. On top of that, he likes to write programs that generate all kind of visual output. Currently he lives in London and studies Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, UK. He is co-author of “Generative Gestaltung” which was in 2010 one of the top selling German-language design books with translations to English and French. He has also contributed on a number of international exhibitions, conferences, workshops and code libraries, related to computational design and information visualization.
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source: benedikt-grossde

A while ago, I have had to do a rough simulation for the sea level of the coast of england. Simulation in the sense of, how would the coastline and the territory of Lincolnshire (a county in the east of England) be reshaped approximately by a rise or decline of the sea level due to Global Warming?

While I was trying to figure out how much of Lincolnshire would remain for instance in the case of +6m sea level rise, btw. not that much, I realised that I was very drawn to simulate values beyond “normal” predicted Global Warming sea level projections. As I consider myself a non morbid person, it is safe to rule the voyeurism for catastrophes out. It is the notion of imagine the implications of such transformed/speculative landscapes, which intrigues me.

Because I really enjoyed to browse this “alternative” worlds, I decided to revisit the project to create a series of animations of various “dramatic” changes of a world reshaped by a monumental rise or decline of the sea level. All animations below have been created with the “Speculative Sea Level Explorer” application. The app (+ source code) is available for download at the bottom of the page, so you can start with your own explorations right away.

When I showed the animations to others, I was asked quite a few times whether this simulation is accurate? Short answer is “yes” in a rough way, especially for the large scale changes like the ones I am showing in the animations. The simulation is based on an elevation data set called “SRTM30 Plus” by the Scripps Institution Of Oceanography, which is an extended version of the original NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (often abbreviated SRTM, land elevation only) enhanced with bathymetry (underwater evaluation). But there are also many limitations e.g. the cost region of the Netherlands is obviously wrong (it is on a rise of “+0″ already coloured blue). Altogether it is just a very basic and rough simulation based on the raw elevation, anything else in not put into consideration.