Two UF geologists are working with NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey to study the effects of climate change on the dunes at Cape Canaveral, where NASA houses its launch equipment.
Peter Adams and John Jaeger, assistant and associate professors of the UF Geological Sciences department respectively, started their research on the Cape Canaveral shoreline in 2009.
Adams said he became interested in Cape Canaveral and its conspicuous “bump” along an otherwise straight and sandy coast when he became a professor at UF.
Climate change is affecting the dunes on the beaches of Cape Canaveral, a potential threat to NASA. There are launch pads and other launch infrastructure just a couple hundred yards away from the shoreline that could be harmed by dune erosion, Adams wrote in an email.
He and Jaeger began their research with the help of a graduate student who traveled to the Kennedy Space Center every four years to collect data on the changing shape of the beach.
“Now, our data set is five years long and we think it will be one of the most informative data sets on shoreline change that has been collected,” Adams said.
Rising sea levels affect coastal locations like Florida and cause the shoreline to erode or move landward.
Adams said if the dunes at Cape Canaveral were washed away by these storms, it could critically damage NASA’s launch pad and infrastructure.
NASA has built artificial dunes to protect its foundation. But it is difficult to foresee how long these dunes will offer protection because storm size and frequency are not easily predicted, Adams said.
Climate change and rising sea levels are still an issue at the Kennedy Space Center, but these artificial dunes were built to stabilize the issue.
Adams said he would suggest people become more aware that we live on a planet with a very active surface that is constantly changing.
“We need to pay close attention to our environment through research, education, and by promoting public awareness so that individuals can make sound decisions for how society interacts with our physical environment,” he said.
Camila Gonzalez, a UF biochemistry freshman, said it’s exciting that professors from UF can research such an important topic.
“People need to be more educated about this problem,” the 18-year-old said. “It’s really cool for UF and the professors to be able to do this kind of research.”
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 12/7/2014]
