NASA looks at Louisiana delta system, eyes global forecasts

MIKE ISLAND, La. (AP) — Erosion, sinking land and sea rise from climate change have killed the Louisiana woods where a 41-year-old Native American chief played as a child. Less than 50 miles away, middle-school students can stand on islands that emerged the year they were born. NASA is using high-tech airborne systems along with boats and mud-slogging work on islands for a $15 million study of these two parts of Louisiana’s river delta system. One is hitched to a river and growing, the other disconnected and dying. Scientists from NASA and a half-dozen universities aim to create computer models that can be used with satellite data to let countries around the world learn which parts of their dwindling deltas can be shored up.