WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:05.640 --> 00:00:08.370 When you think of sea level rise and NASA, 2 00:00:08.490 --> 00:00:10.260 if that's the kind of thing you think about, 3 00:00:10.440 --> 00:00:14.670 I feel like it's only natural to imagine scientists pouring over satellite data, 4 00:00:14.700 --> 00:00:18.210 trying to better understand what's happening and what the future might look like 5 00:00:18.211 --> 00:00:19.080 on our coasts, 6 00:00:19.470 --> 00:00:23.400 including right here where I live in the Hampton roads area of Virginia. Uh, 7 00:00:23.430 --> 00:00:27.840 my name is Joe Atkinson and I'm a science communicator at NASA's Langley 8 00:00:27.841 --> 00:00:28.770 Research Center. 9 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:33.420 This area is one of the hot spots for sea level rise in the country. 10 00:00:33.421 --> 00:00:36.630 Even on a beautiful, gorgeous, sunny day, 11 00:00:36.631 --> 00:00:41.250 we can have nuisance flooding just because of a high tide, 12 00:00:42.150 --> 00:00:46.560 but we'll get back to this area later. And specifically NASA Langley. 13 00:00:46.980 --> 00:00:51.390 The thing is, even as scientists are studying sea level rise, 14 00:00:51.930 --> 00:00:55.170 the agency itself is having to confront the reality of it. 15 00:00:55.171 --> 00:00:59.340 It has field centers and coastal communities around the country. 16 00:01:00.360 --> 00:01:03.810 I wanted to find out how seriously NASA is taking this threat. 17 00:01:03.990 --> 00:01:08.460 So I got in touch with a guy whose job it is to worry about this kind of stuff. 18 00:01:08.970 --> 00:01:13.350 Uh, his name is Calvin Williams and he is the associate administrator for NASA's 19 00:01:13.380 --> 00:01:15.360 Office of Strategic Infrastructure. 20 00:01:15.860 --> 00:01:17.660 First of all, I like to say, thank you, Joseph, 21 00:01:17.661 --> 00:01:20.210 for the opportunity to speak to you about this. 22 00:01:20.690 --> 00:01:25.070 Sea level rise is a very major concern for us. Uh, 23 00:01:25.370 --> 00:01:29.810 we have about two thirds of our NASA facilities 24 00:01:30.290 --> 00:01:33.320 are within 16 feet of sea level, 25 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:38.030 and that comes to about $20 billion value of, uh, 26 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:38.630 infrastructure. 27 00:01:38.630 --> 00:01:39.021 That we have. 28 00:01:39.021 --> 00:01:43.730 Now that long list of facilities includes Kennedy Space 29 00:01:43.731 --> 00:01:47.210 Center in Florida, Johnson Space Center in Texas, 30 00:01:47.240 --> 00:01:51.860 Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana, 31 00:01:52.100 --> 00:01:54.320 Ames Research Center in California, 32 00:01:54.530 --> 00:01:58.820 and Wallops Flight Facility and NASA Langley right here in Virginia. We have. 33 00:01:58.880 --> 00:02:03.860 Estimates that within the next 60 years or so that there could be 34 00:02:03.861 --> 00:02:07.190 potential four feet rise in sea level. 35 00:02:07.460 --> 00:02:10.790 And so therefore we are trying to take measures now. 36 00:02:11.270 --> 00:02:15.740 Now in broad terms, that means moving to higher ground or, you know, 37 00:02:15.741 --> 00:02:20.180 making facilities more resilient. At two of NASA's launch sites, 38 00:02:20.181 --> 00:02:24.650 resiliency equals the movement of lots and lots of sand. 39 00:02:25.820 --> 00:02:30.380 Um, for example, we have done some reconstruction work at Wallops, um, 40 00:02:30.410 --> 00:02:32.930 and also at KSC where we have, um, 41 00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:36.800 stabilized the shoreline and the dunes there. 42 00:02:37.250 --> 00:02:41.300 And that's something that we have to, uh, replenish, uh, 43 00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:43.130 approximately every five years. 44 00:02:43.670 --> 00:02:48.590 So you have to wonder, is this something that would keep Calvin up at night? 45 00:02:49.070 --> 00:02:49.880 Well, it is. 46 00:02:49.880 --> 00:02:52.010 Yeah, at the top of our lists, uh, 47 00:02:52.040 --> 00:02:56.600 definitely at the centers that are on the coastal areas. Uh, 48 00:02:56.601 --> 00:03:00.310 we want to make sure that we are taking the necessary steps to ensure. 49 00:03:00.310 --> 00:03:04.060 That, uh, in the future we have launch facilities, 50 00:03:04.390 --> 00:03:08.380 research facilities that can continue the mission of NASA. 51 00:03:08.910 --> 00:03:13.440 Now Calvin talked about the beach replenishment efforts at Wallops and Kennedy 52 00:03:13.441 --> 00:03:14.910 Space Center. Um, 53 00:03:14.940 --> 00:03:18.720 but I kind of wanted to dig a little deeper and find out what's happening at two 54 00:03:18.721 --> 00:03:22.620 of NASA's research centers Ames on the West coast. 55 00:03:22.621 --> 00:03:26.190 And of course I wanted to know what's happening here at Langley on the East 56 00:03:26.191 --> 00:03:30.540 coast. Um, since I work at Langley, I knew exactly who to go to. 57 00:03:30.870 --> 00:03:32.340 And that's Loretta Kelemen. 58 00:03:32.341 --> 00:03:35.880 She is the director of Langley's Center Operations Directorate. 59 00:03:36.390 --> 00:03:40.440 Certainly we are a, uh, a coastal, uh, center it's on the coast. 60 00:03:40.441 --> 00:03:43.530 We're surrounded by two rivers, um, the, uh, 61 00:03:43.531 --> 00:03:46.860 the York River and the James River and along with the Chesapeake Bay. 62 00:03:46.861 --> 00:03:51.450 So a lot of opportunity for flooding and for sea level rise to present 63 00:03:51.451 --> 00:03:53.700 itself as a problem, uh, for our center. 64 00:03:54.180 --> 00:03:57.570 And so this is a big issue for us and certainly one we've been addressing for 65 00:03:57.571 --> 00:03:58.950 some time. Now. 66 00:03:59.160 --> 00:04:03.780 Conservative estimates show about a 15 inch rise in sea level at Langley by 67 00:04:03.781 --> 00:04:06.600 2080. uh. more extreme estimates. 68 00:04:06.840 --> 00:04:10.080 push that number as high as 49 inches or about four feet. 69 00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:13.800 The center uses a flood tool as sort of a, I guess, like a crystal ball. 70 00:04:15.440 --> 00:04:20.250 This tool, great tool developed by our geospatial information systems folks, 71 00:04:20.551 --> 00:04:21.990 our GIS team, uh, 72 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:26.940 that allows us to visually picture the rising sea level and which facilities 73 00:04:26.941 --> 00:04:27.900 and areas are affected. 74 00:04:28.380 --> 00:04:29.430 In 2011, 75 00:04:29.431 --> 00:04:32.970 following a study that highlighted some of Langley's biggest vulnerabilities, 76 00:04:32.971 --> 00:04:33.421 the center, 77 00:04:33.421 --> 00:04:37.560 which is actually NASA's oldest - it's just over a hundred years old now - began 78 00:04:37.561 --> 00:04:42.090 taking action in the form of a major revitalization effort. Um, 79 00:04:42.450 --> 00:04:47.370 this effort aims to shrink and consolidate Langley's campus and minimize those 80 00:04:47.371 --> 00:04:48.450 vulnerabilities. 81 00:04:49.420 --> 00:04:53.580 We've been demolishing facilities that are in highly vulnerable areas and 82 00:04:53.581 --> 00:04:56.340 building all of our new facilities and consolidating a lot of our, 83 00:04:56.790 --> 00:05:01.770 our missions into, uh, fewer facilities at our higher elevations. And, 84 00:05:02.100 --> 00:05:06.180 and for us, uh, at NASA Langley, our higher elevation is around 12 foot. 85 00:05:06.630 --> 00:05:09.240 And so we're not very high here. Further. 86 00:05:09.630 --> 00:05:14.130 Complicating the issue at Langley is a phenomenon known as subsidence. Um, 87 00:05:14.340 --> 00:05:15.360 the ground, 88 00:05:15.630 --> 00:05:20.250 the center sits on is slowly sinking by about 2.2 millimeters a year. 89 00:05:20.550 --> 00:05:20.821 Now, 90 00:05:20.821 --> 00:05:25.800 if you add that to the 4.6 millimeters of sea level rise a year, 91 00:05:26.400 --> 00:05:27.450 uh, let me do the math here. 92 00:05:27.451 --> 00:05:32.430 You're actually getting about 6.8 millimeters of relative sea level 93 00:05:32.431 --> 00:05:37.050 rise a year at Langley - currently. The center isn't taking any chances, 94 00:05:37.500 --> 00:05:40.500 uh, they can't pack up and head for the mountains, of course, 95 00:05:40.501 --> 00:05:45.270 but in addition to squeezing the campus onto the highest possible ground, 96 00:05:45.870 --> 00:05:47.840 they're also making really smart construction choices. 97 00:05:49.320 --> 00:05:49.561 The, 98 00:05:49.561 --> 00:05:53.700 study that we did in 2011 of course recommended that when we build all of our 99 00:05:53.970 --> 00:05:57.410 first floor elevations to 10 foot. six inch minimums. 100 00:05:57.411 --> 00:06:00.950 and that goes into our design requirements for all of our new facilities. 101 00:06:02.080 --> 00:06:05.200 For Loretta sea level rise, isn't just a work concern. 102 00:06:05.201 --> 00:06:09.760 It's a personal concern too. Uh, she and her family live right on the water, 103 00:06:10.690 --> 00:06:13.900 but the communities in Hampton roads are taking the issue seriously. 104 00:06:13.901 --> 00:06:17.650 And the federal agencies are too. So she takes heart in that, 105 00:06:17.651 --> 00:06:21.310 not just as a federal employee, but also as a private citizen. 106 00:06:22.660 --> 00:06:24.490 I am I'm on the water. Always say, 107 00:06:24.491 --> 00:06:27.460 I'm on the water or I'm in the water depending on the storm that day. 108 00:06:27.880 --> 00:06:32.110 So you just never know. So it is a little personal and a little, um, 109 00:06:32.830 --> 00:06:36.040 drives a little anxiety, but I'm very encouraged by, um, 110 00:06:36.070 --> 00:06:38.950 certainly the work that the city of Hampton's doing. And I think, uh, 111 00:06:38.960 --> 00:06:42.250 the things that they'll do, uh, will continue to support, uh, 112 00:06:42.280 --> 00:06:45.940 and they're very engaged in the federal community here in Hampton. 113 00:06:45.941 --> 00:06:48.640 And I think all the things that they're doing are going to help our center as 114 00:06:48.641 --> 00:06:52.360 well to try to move water, move water out in a way, you know, from the, 115 00:06:52.780 --> 00:06:53.530 from the city. 116 00:06:53.530 --> 00:06:54.310 Okay. 117 00:06:54.310 --> 00:06:58.750 So now we're going to move all the way across the country to Ames Research 118 00:06:58.751 --> 00:07:00.910 Center, which is in Mountain View, California, 119 00:07:00.911 --> 00:07:04.990 right in the heart of Silicon Valley at the southern end of the San Francisco 120 00:07:04.991 --> 00:07:07.180 Bay. Now, when I reached out to Ames, 121 00:07:07.181 --> 00:07:09.760 they put me in touch with a guy named Garrett Turner. 122 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:14.530 He is the restoration program manager in the Environmental Management Division 123 00:07:14.531 --> 00:07:18.550 at Ames. And when Garrett thinks of sea level rise at Ames, 124 00:07:18.551 --> 00:07:23.020 he thinks back to 1998 and a series of storms that moved through the area. 125 00:07:23.290 --> 00:07:27.550 Now this gave officials at Ames a big scare because it flooded the north end of 126 00:07:27.551 --> 00:07:32.530 the center and threatened to inundate a telecommunication gateway facility 127 00:07:32.531 --> 00:07:33.100 there, 128 00:07:33.100 --> 00:07:37.120 which actually would have shut down the internet for all of Silicon Valley. 129 00:07:37.660 --> 00:07:41.470 We managed to keep that from happening by getting a lot of 130 00:07:41.890 --> 00:07:45.310 employees, uh, both civil servants and contractors, 131 00:07:45.311 --> 00:07:47.290 to go and put sandbags out. 132 00:07:47.770 --> 00:07:51.670 And then we were able to pump some of the water in the channels 133 00:07:52.960 --> 00:07:57.370 over a levee into Stevens Creek. Um, after that, 134 00:07:57.371 --> 00:08:01.600 we kind of decided that we needed to have a proactive, uh, 135 00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:03.820 way of at least addressing big storms. 136 00:08:03.970 --> 00:08:06.700 Now much like Langley, um, Ames, 137 00:08:06.701 --> 00:08:09.820 which is the second oldest NASA field center, 138 00:08:10.150 --> 00:08:12.730 decided it needed to look to higher ground. 139 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:17.080 That decision was based on hundred year sea level rise projections. 140 00:08:17.800 --> 00:08:21.610 We are now requiring a much higher minimum elevation 141 00:08:22.210 --> 00:08:24.640 for a new facility that gets built. 142 00:08:24.641 --> 00:08:29.320 So we have these little top up areas and our master plan has 143 00:08:29.321 --> 00:08:33.490 envisioned taking facilities that are in that a hundred year flood, 144 00:08:33.491 --> 00:08:37.960 plain and relocating them and relocating the entire campus 145 00:08:38.290 --> 00:08:39.310 farther south, 146 00:08:39.490 --> 00:08:44.230 which is several feet higher and has a 147 00:08:44.231 --> 00:08:47.740 much lower expected impact from sea level rise. 148 00:08:48.190 --> 00:08:49.570 There is a wrinkle here. 149 00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:53.470 It's not just the bay that's a problem at Ames. 150 00:08:53.680 --> 00:08:58.230 There's an old system of salt ponds and levees nearby that date back to the 19th 151 00:08:58.231 --> 00:09:00.570 century. And they further complicate things. 152 00:09:00.571 --> 00:09:03.810 And it's not a problem that Ames can just deal with on its own. 153 00:09:04.340 --> 00:09:09.110 Levee maintenance is outside of NASA's property and we can't go 154 00:09:09.111 --> 00:09:12.440 and fix all of these and keep them, uh, 155 00:09:12.470 --> 00:09:16.340 from pouring water into, uh, into NASA. 156 00:09:16.880 --> 00:09:20.330 One thing they're doing is working with the local water district. 157 00:09:20.780 --> 00:09:25.250 We're working on trying to figure out how we can reinforce those 158 00:09:25.251 --> 00:09:29.630 levees and potentially raise them that we have kind of 159 00:09:29.870 --> 00:09:33.950 a bicycling and walking trail, the bay trail that goes around. 160 00:09:34.190 --> 00:09:37.970 They'll have to look to their neighbors on either side for help too. 161 00:09:38.750 --> 00:09:42.920 If we protect the levees immediately in front of us and they do nothing with 162 00:09:42.921 --> 00:09:43.754 theirs, 163 00:09:43.940 --> 00:09:47.990 we end up with the water just going over their levee and then coming in. 164 00:09:48.380 --> 00:09:53.240 So this is going to have to be a partnership kind of regional with 165 00:09:53.270 --> 00:09:57.980 other stakeholders to make sure that we can come up with a strategy that 166 00:09:57.981 --> 00:10:00.290 works for all of us. 167 00:10:00.980 --> 00:10:05.750 One of those strategies is actually to turn those old salt ponds into wetlands, 168 00:10:06.020 --> 00:10:08.930 which would help slow the effects of sea level rise. 169 00:10:09.350 --> 00:10:12.350 It would also be a return of sorts to what once was. 170 00:10:12.950 --> 00:10:17.300 Civil engineers have it perfectly in the early 19 hundreds - we drained all the 171 00:10:17.301 --> 00:10:20.570 swamps. Now we're creating wetlands. 172 00:10:20.571 --> 00:10:22.430 It's kind of reversing what we did before. 173 00:10:22.431 --> 00:10:24.380 So it's all part of the same training. 174 00:10:26.090 --> 00:10:28.280 We've had a little change of scenery here. 175 00:10:28.281 --> 00:10:32.360 Obviously I wanted to wrap things up on my front porch here in Hampton. 176 00:10:32.600 --> 00:10:37.220 We're just a few blocks in from the water and we're on relatively high 177 00:10:37.221 --> 00:10:38.510 ground. Still, 178 00:10:38.660 --> 00:10:43.220 worst case longterm sea level rise projections would have me 179 00:10:43.280 --> 00:10:45.260 sitting in the water here, um, 180 00:10:45.290 --> 00:10:50.210 and even minor to moderate projections are pretty bad news for some folks right 181 00:10:50.211 --> 00:10:54.590 here in this neighborhood, just a few miles across the water in Norfolk, 182 00:10:54.591 --> 00:10:56.060 that way, 183 00:10:56.420 --> 00:11:00.410 the high tide nuisance flooding I mentioned back at the beginning of this video, 184 00:11:01.250 --> 00:11:05.930 um, is already encroaching regularly on urban areas and 185 00:11:05.990 --> 00:11:10.370 frequently makes city streets a gamble for drivers in all, 186 00:11:10.371 --> 00:11:11.990 but the tallest vehicles. 187 00:11:12.860 --> 00:11:16.160 And so just as these coastal cities are having to deal with these wet realities, 188 00:11:16.161 --> 00:11:20.210 so too is NASA. Uh, 189 00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:21.740 when I set out to do this, 190 00:11:21.741 --> 00:11:26.630 I really had very little idea what NASA was doing to deal with sea level 191 00:11:26.631 --> 00:11:28.490 rise itself. Um, 192 00:11:28.550 --> 00:11:32.270 now after talking to Calvin and Loretta and Garrett, 193 00:11:32.600 --> 00:11:37.310 I realize that there's a lot going on. In some cases, 194 00:11:37.311 --> 00:11:40.310 there are things that centers can do similarly, 195 00:11:40.311 --> 00:11:43.400 like move facilities to higher ground to help, 196 00:11:43.550 --> 00:11:46.460 but there's really no one size fits all approach. 197 00:11:46.490 --> 00:11:49.430 Every place has its unique consideration. 198 00:11:49.431 --> 00:11:54.370 Ames has the levees and salt ponds, Langley has subsidence, 199 00:11:54.760 --> 00:11:58.390 uh, Kennedy, and Wallops have beach erosion to deal with. 200 00:11:59.290 --> 00:12:02.740 Staying ahead of this stuff is obviously a big, 201 00:12:02.770 --> 00:12:07.570 big job that requires a lot of expertise, foresight, 202 00:12:07.930 --> 00:12:10.930 planning, and coordination. Thankfully, 203 00:12:10.931 --> 00:12:14.800 it's a job that NASA is taking seriously. Um, 204 00:12:14.801 --> 00:12:19.600 and it's a job that will allow NASA to continue its critical work in 205 00:12:19.601 --> 00:12:23.560 space exploration and aeronautics and Earth science, 206 00:12:24.310 --> 00:12:26.110 even as the water keeps rolling in.