Search

Climate change will greatly impact infrastructure and natural resources in low-lying coastal zones. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) encompasses 57,000 hectares on a barrier island that is at high risk of erosion and flooding resulting from natural processes and climate change. In 2010 and 2013/2014, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) implemented an adaptive management strategy to address the impact of increasing erosion on KSC. Two dunes totaling 1.7 kilometers in length were created to allow the shoreline to move landward slowly (i.e. managed retreat). The primary reason for building the dunes was to protect valuable national assets, but it was also anticipated that the dunes would provide habitat for wildlife. Post-construction monitoring efforts focused on vegetation and two protected species, Gopherus polyphemus (gopher tortoises) and Peromyscus polionotus niveiventris (southeastern beach mice). After five years of data collection, we found that desired species of vegetation proliferated and non-native species decreased over time. Numbers of G. polyphemus and their burrows increased steadily. P. polionotus niveiventris began using the dunes soon after they were planted and remained resident, based on trapping and radiotracking information. The created dunes have subsequently withstood two hurricanes and exhibited much less damage than the adjacent natural dunes. The use of green infrastructure appears to be effective for the simultaneous protection of NASA assets and conservation of important wildlife habitat. This adaptive management strategy using a managed retreat approach is a positive step toward addressing the uncertainty and variability of conditions associated with climate change and sea level rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an objective and subjective verification of a high-resolution configuration of the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) over east-central Florida during the 1999 and 2000 summer months. Centered on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), the innermost nested grid of RAMS has a horizontal grid spacing of 1.25 km, thereby providing forecasts capable of modeling finescale phenomena such as ocean and river breezes, and convection. The RAMS is run operationally at CCAFS within the Eastern Range Dispersion Assessment System (ERDAS), in order to provide emergency response guidance during space operations. ERDAS uses RAMS wind and temperature fields for input into ERDAS diffusion algorithms; therefore, the accuracy of dispersion predictions is highly dependent on the accuracy of RAMS forecasts. The most substantial error in RAMS over east-central Florida is a surface-based cold temperature bias, primarily during the daylight hours. At the Shuttle Landing Facility, the RAMS point error statistics are not substantially different than the National Centers for Environment Prediction Eta Model; however, an objective evaluation consisting of only point error statistics cannot adequately determine the added value of a high-resolution model configuration. Thus, results from a subjective evaluation of the RAMS forecast sea breeze and thunderstorm initiation on the 1.25-km grid are also presented. According to the subjective verification of the Florida east coast sea breeze, the RAMS categorical and skill scores exceeded that of the Eta Model predictions in most instances. The RAMS skill scores in predicting thunderstorm initiation are much lower than the sea-breeze evaluation scores, likely resulting from the lack of a sophisticated data assimilation scheme in the current operational configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]