This presentation poses an open question: how will we come to live with water as it is transformed by anthropogenic impacts? Melting ice sheets and rising seas are only two indicators of Earth's rapidly changing hydrosphere. Many more await us. As we navigate the catastrophic consequences that overflow our present conditions--in the form of floods, superstorms, and extreme rainfall--how might we simultaneously evolve new ways of engaging with our shared watery encounters?

Approaching these questions through cultural anthropology, Howe considers the unfolding connections between the melting Arctic and coastal cities facing sea level rise flowing from the (once) frozen north. Through the concept of “hydrological globalization” and “Sister Cities of the Anthropocene” I offer a set of speculative tools through which we might engage our collective watery futures as both troubling prologue and resource for creative reimagining.