Professor Shares $1.35 Million Grant for Applied Climate Research
MELBOURNE, FLA.—Ken Lindeman, a Florida Institute of Technology professor in the College of Science, Department of Education and Interdisciplinary Studies, is part of a research team awarded a $1.35 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Office. The team will make advanced regional predictions of sea level rise for six sites on the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. The total award will be shared by seven principal investigators at seven universities. Lindeman will receive $170,000 over three years.
Lindeman and his Florida Tech students will build a comprehensive summary of the most effective tools for transferring technical information on sea level adaptation to policy makers. This product will analyze over 1,000 climate planning documents from around the globe in many languages. Many of these documents will come from the FIT Virtual Climate Adaptation Library, a major online information archive at http://research.fit.edu/sealevelriselibrary.
The team, led by Ben Horton of the University of Pennsylvania, will combine empirical and modeled sea level rise scenarios with state-of-the-science hurricane and storm surge modeling at six study sites from Florida to Massachusetts. These multi-sourced sea level rise scenarios will be integrated into strategic policy documents in English and Spanish to make diverse technical results more accessible for adaptive coastal decision-making.
Lindeman also directs the Academic Sustainability program and administers online science courses offered by the Florida Tech College of Science. He received his bachelor’s degree from Florida Tech in 1980 and later earned a doctorate from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Currently at Florida Tech, he directs the Academic Sustainability Program and administers all online science courses. In 1989, he started a coastal research non-profit organization and has served diverse non-profits as a board member or senior scientist since, focusing on the southeast U.S., Cuba, Mexico, Costa Rica and Brazil.
Lindeman has been a consultant to the Smithsonian Institution Press, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, NOAA, Conservation International and the National Geographic Society. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed research articles in 17 journals and books, and has co-authored books on fisheries and coastal management.
