I'm completely new to ArcGIS. I can see how powerful a tool it is, though I'm not from a technical background. I'm hoping to map what the world's coastlines would look like after a global rise in sea levels of 20m, 40m, 60m and 80m. Wildly speculative I know but this is research for a book. Any help received will be duly acknowledged in print. Many thanks!
There are some existing maps out there that sound similar. The USGS has some animations (not very good visually): http://cegis.usgs.gov/sea_level_rise.html. There are also hyperlinks to presentations and reports that may help you at the USGS link (some info is a bit dated now). These guys have an interactive map and if you click on Galleries, Flooding Maps they have several nice maps: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Special:SeaLevel. They also have usage information (licensing/copyright) through links in "contact us" so you can sort through that if you just prefer to use their graphics in your book.
Otherwise all you would need is a global elevation data set and then just create a 20m, 40m, etc contour lines since the existing coastline will be at 0m. NASA has global elevation data for free that you would need to download, piece together and process (time consuming), but it would pay to research if someone already has global coastal contours (I'm guessing they do).
Hope the links help a bit! Good luck on the project!
Hello Bond Thanks so much for the help! I just need to do a conversion for those AVI animations, but the other map was really useful too. I suspect I might be better yielding to someone else's expertise on this providing I'm within their copyright requirements. Don't think I'm quite up to wrangling NASA data, but the idea sounds pretty cool nonetheless. Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. I really appreciate it. Chris
