Fall colors at Pittock Mansion

Portland's downtown. (Stephanie Yao Long/Staff)

(Stephanie Yao Long)

Maps created by an urban planner show what Portland and other major cities would look like if the world's glaciers melted.

The maps show how cities would transform if all major ice forms, like the Antarctic Peninsula and Greenland, melted across the globe and flooded into the ocean, extremely raising sea levels by 264 feet, according to online magazine and social action site TakePart. Jeffrey Linn, the creator of the maps, used that number, from a United States Geological Survey study, in his analysis.

The blue and tan hued maps include references that would make the most sense to locals. In Portland, the city and surrounding area would become "The Islands of Portland." St. Johns would become "St. Johns Port," and Sellwood would become "Sellwater," for example.

See below:

Portland. (Map: Courtesy Spatialities.com)

Via:

The type of flooding shown in the maps would take centuries or longer of rising temperatures to occur, TakePart reported. For more on Linn's work, see his site Spatialities.

--Laura Frazier

lfrazier@oregonian.com

503-294-4035

@frazier_laura