As I step onto the tidal flats of Boundary Bay, just south of Vancouver, the morning sun illuminates what locals call “the breathing of the sea.” Today, at extreme low tide, the ocean has retreated nearly a kilometer, exposing a vast moonscape of rippled sand, scattered clamshells, and tide pools teeming with trapped marine life. Children dart between puddles, their laughter carrying across the wind-swept expanse.
But this breathing—this ancient rhythm of advance and retreat—is changing in ways that threaten coastal communities worldwide. I’ve come here with Dr. Maya Selkirk, a coastal geomorphologist from the University of British Columbia, to understand what’s at stake.
“What you’re seeing now will likely be gone within decades,” she tells me, gesturing across the tidal flats that provide critical habitat for millions of migratory birds. “These intertidal zones will be permanently underwater as sea levels continue to accelerate. It’s not just about losing beaches—it’s about losing entire ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.”
Last week’s release of the 2025 Cryospheric Assessment has sent shockwaves through the scientific community. The international report, representing the work of 142 scientists across 35 countries, confirms what many researchers have feared: the world’s major ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are now losing mass at rates previously predicted only in worst-case scenarios.
“We’re witnessing ice sheet deterioration that we thought might happen by 2050,” explains Dr. Selkirk as we walk the tide line. “Instead, it’s happening now.”
The numbers are staggering. The assessment documents that Antarctica alone shed 150 billion tonnes of ice annually since 2020—a 30% increase from the previous decade. Greenland’s melt rates showed similar acceleration, with record-breaking surface melt events occurring in three of the past five years.
For coastal cities, the implications are immediate and severe. The report revises global sea level projections upward by nearly 25% compared to 2019 estimates. Cities like Vancouver, with its expansive low-lying areas in Richmond and Delta, now face difficult questions about infrastructure that was designed for a climate that no longer exists.
“We built our coastal communities with the assumption that the sea would behave tomorrow much as it did yesterday,” says Allison Chen, climate adaptation specialist with the City of Vancouver. “That assumption is now fundamentally broken.”
Chen takes me to Kitsilano Beach the following day, where winter storms combined with higher sea levels have already eroded significant portions of the shoreline. Last December, during what meteorologists called a “king tide event,” seawater breached the seawall, flooding nearby streets and businesses.
“What was once a once-in-50-years flood event is now happening annually,” Chen notes as we observe city workers reinforcing vulnerable sections of the seawall. “And what we’re preparing for now may not be enough if these new projections hold true.”
Beyond the physical infrastructure, there are profound social justice dimensions to rising seas. In Metro Vancouver, many immigrant communities have settled in affordable housing in low-lying areas like Richmond, where nearly 60% of land sits at elevations that will be regularly flooded by 2050 according to the new projections from Environment and Climate Change Canada.
William George, a council member from Tsleil-Waututh Nation, meets me at their cultural center overlooking Burrard Inlet. For thousands of years, his people have lived along these shores, harvesting seafood and navigating the waters. The community’s relationship with the sea is woven into their cultural identity.
“The ocean has always been our grocery store, our highway, our teacher,” George explains. “We’ve witnessed changes before, but nothing like this. When the tide comes in differently, when the shoreline changes, it erases places that hold our stories and history.”
The new assessment doesn’t just revise numbers—it revises timelines. Sea level rise that coastal planners expected to manage over decades may now arrive in years. While global averages suggest 30-45 centimeters of rise by 2050, regional variations mean some areas will see much more.
Across the Georgia Strait on Vancouver Island, the municipality of Tofino has already begun implementing what they call “managed retreat”—the planned abandonment of certain low-lying areas. After three major storm surges damaged infrastructure last winter, the community voted to relocate its visitor center and begin planning for the eventual movement of other public buildings.
“It’s emotionally and politically difficult,” admits Rebecca Seymour, Tofino’s climate resilience coordinator. “No one wants to be the person who says ‘we need to leave this place behind.’ But the alternative is pouring millions into infrastructure that will inevitably fail.”
Back at Boundary Bay, Dr. Selkirk and I watch as the tide begins its inexorable return, water flowing across the flats with surprising speed. Within hours, this vast exposed landscape will disappear beneath the waves—a daily reminder of water’s power to transform.
“What makes this particularly challenging is that ice sheets introduce a time lag into the system,” Selkirk explains. “Even if we stopped all emissions tomorrow, the ice loss we’ve already triggered will continue for decades. This means a certain amount of sea level rise is now unavoidable.”
This unavoidable future is forcing difficult conversations in coastal communities worldwide. While engineered solutions like seawalls and flood barriers may protect some areas temporarily, their astronomical costs make them impractical as permanent solutions. The Netherlands, long considered leaders in flood control, recently announced a fundamental shift in their approach—moving from “fighting water” to “living with water.”
For many coastal residents in British Columbia, these global dynamics are already reshaping daily life. Insurance rates for waterfront properties have doubled in many areas over the past three years. Mortgage lenders are beginning to incorporate sea level projections into 30-year lending decisions, effectively redlining certain postal codes.
As the tide completes its return to Boundary Bay, submerging the last visible sandbars, I’m struck by how the slow-motion disaster of sea level rise defies our human instinct for immediacy. There’s no dramatic moment, no single storm to mark the transition—just the quiet certainty of water claiming what once was land.
“The question isn’t whether we’ll adapt,” Dr. Selkirk says as we turn to leave, “but how gracefully we’ll manage the transition. The communities that start planning now, that make space for water rather than fighting it—they’re the ones that will thrive in this new reality.”
As I drive back to Vancouver along the coastal highway, passing vulnerable infrastructure that may not exist in my lifetime, I’m reminded that rising seas represent more than a physical challenge. They challenge our sense of permanence, our attachment to place, and our understanding of what it means to live in relationship with water.
The Earth’s ice sheets may be distant from our daily lives, but their fate is now inseparable from the future of our coastal communities. Their melting forces us to reimagine what resilience looks like in a world where the line between land and sea is increasingly fluid.
