Sea level rise: NASA watching waters rise right outside the front door – pt. 2

Recent studies have shown that the landforms around the Chesapeake are sinking as a result of processes that started during the last Ice Age. When massive sheets of ice covered much of North America, the weight pressed down on Earth’s crust and mantle, causing subterranean, molten rock to bulge under the Chesapeake and other points south. When the ice retreated, northern lands began rising – rebounding — while the land to the south began subsiding again.

The combination of rising waters and sinking ground means the Hampton Roads area (Norfolk-Newport News-Virginia Beach) could see 41 to 53 inches (104 to 135 centimeters) of relative sea level rise by the 2080s. That prospect has the leaders of both NASA Langley and the Langley Air Force Base planning to slowly move back from coastal flood zones. Scientists have surveyed the property with airborne lidar, and modelers have looked more closely at future projections for flood-prone areas.

NASA notes that old buildings are being hardened for tougher weather, and new buildings are being sited farther inland.

Johnson Space Center lies within some of the most notorious hurricane territory along the Gulf of Mexico coast. The primary NASA center for human spaceflight training and operations is particularly vulnerable to water hazards, including storm surges from hurricanes, flooding from extreme rainfall, and sea-level rise. While these hazards are not new to the Galveston Bay region, many climate change scenarios predict increases in the frequency and severity of such events in an area where sea level rise has been significant. Sea level has been rising nearly 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) per decade in Galveston Bay, significantly more than at any other NASA center.

Hurricane Ike in 2008 provided an instructive dress rehearsal for future events. Ike was just a category 2 storm in terms of wind speed, but the 20-foot-storm surge was similar to what a category 5 storm would generate. Widespread power outages occurred in Houston, and the power loss and debris cleanup resulted in a week-long shutdown at Johnson. The experience spurred improvements to infrastructure, including new floodgates at key facilities like Mission Control and the protecting and raising of utility tunnel vents to better handle storm surge flooding.

Then there is NASA’s home in New Orleans. Michoud Assembly Facility includes one of the world’s largest manufacturing plants, a 43-acre building where Saturn rockets and space shuttle boosters were once assembled and where the new Space Launch System will be pieced together. The facility provides deepwater access for ships that carry rockets across the Gulf of Mexico to Kennedy and Wallops.

Michoud, however, stands below sea level and behind 19-foot-tall earthen levees. The land beneath the facility is subsiding, a result of the draining and compression of Mississippi Delta swampland as the city of New Orleans has been built up over the centuries. After Hurricane Katrina, the hardy facilities team at Michoud had to pump more than a billion gallons of water out of the facility.

According to NASA’s CASI report, sea level could rise 30 to 34 inches (76 to 86 centimeters) around Michoud, even under conservative estimates. That’s a much higher water line for Mother Nature to build upon when future hurricanes blow in.

Rising to future challenges
So what does NASA do as the seas rise around its facilities? Cynthia Rosenzweig has an answer: flexible adaptation pathways.

“What makes sense for us to do now? And what might we have to do later?” she said. “We have to consider and understand the risks, and then build something that can be adjusted.”

Rosenzweig conducts her research at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University, both of which stand on the Hurricane-Sandy-hardened streets of New York City. For years she worked with city and state leaders to assess the impacts of climate change and to develop risk reduction strategies. In 2009, she was asked to bring her experience to NASA’s Climate Adaptation Science Investigators Working Group, an effort prompted by a presidential order to evaluate “risks and vulnerabilities” at every federal agency.

“It may be the first time NASA’s scientists and managers have worked together to manage climate risks to our facilities and natural resources,” Rosenzweig said. Together with state and local officials — as well as federal, military, commercial, and conservation partners — CASI has set out to brainstorm what kind of information is needed by facilities managers, as well as what kind of response might be required.

The CASI team translated international reports and projections — such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or the U.S. National Climate Assessment — into practical, regional-scale advice for the NASA centers. They conducted environmental impact studies and modeling to project how much sea level could rise near each facility. They examined past and future land use changes around centers, even considering how sea level rise might affect the endangered and threatened species that find havens on NASA property.

“How do we fight Mother Nature for another fifty years?” said Kim Toufectis. His colleagues at each center and in the Office of Strategic Infrastructure — people with skills in civil and chemical engineering, urban planning, real estate, facilities construction and maintenance — must now weigh their options and develop long-range plans.

In some places, they will need to design smarter buildings; in others, they will retrofit and harden old infrastructure. If a facility must stay within sight of the water, then maybe the important laboratories, storage, or assembly rooms should not be on the ground floor. For the launch facilities, which must remain along the shore, beach replenishment, sea wall repair, and dune building may become part of routine maintenance.

Across the space agency, however, from lab manager to center director to NASA administrator, people will have continually to ask the question: is it time to abandon this place and move inland? It is a question everyone with coastal property in America will eventually have to answer.

To learn more about NASA’s efforts to study sea level rise, click here.

— Also see “NASA watching waters rise right outside the front door – pt. 1,” HSNW, 8 September 2015