Sea Level Rise Threatening Kennedy Space Center in Florida

Rising seas and pounding waves driven by climate change are chipping away at the coast near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, threatening launch pads and future operations, scientists said on Friday.

"There's reason to be nervous now because the problem is so obvious," Peter Adams, a geology professor at the University of Florida, told Reuters.

Adams and fellow University of Florida geologist John Jaeger released their findings on a day when the space center on Florida’s east coast was celebrating a successful first test launch of the Orion capsule designed to one day fly astronauts to Mars.

Nancy Bray, director of Kennedy Space Center operations, said in a University of Florida news release, "We do consider sea level rise and climate change to be urgent."

Bray added that NASA’s plans for dealing with climate change included a "managed retreat" in which it will move infrastructure, potentially including launch pads, as needed.

Florida coastal communities could experience about a 2-foot (60-cm) rise in sea level by 2060, the U.S. Geological Survey has previously said.  The two main causes are the volume of water added to oceans from glacial melt and the expansion of that water from rising sea temperatures.

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