The NOAA Chief Scientist’s Annual Report provides a corporate-level overview of NOAA’s Research and Development (R&D) activities, including a clear expression of the agency's research portfolio logic. As the nation’s environmental intelligence agency, with a legacy reaching back more than 200 years, NOAA supports a research enterprise that is a rich blend of disciplines, methods, and objectives. This document, a first of its kind, highlights NOAA’s progress towards meeting agency priorities in R&D, scientific integrity, and workforce development.
NOAA researchers are aiming new kinds of technology at hurricanes to enhance predictions regarding both the path and intensity of each new storm.
A decade ago, the United States experienced one of the most active and destructive hurricane seasons ever recorded. The loss of life and destruction of property from Hurricanes Katrina (Aug. 29), Rita (Sept. 24), and Wilma (Oct. 24) drove NOAA to re-evaluate hurricane research and severe storm preparedness.
This summer, NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) hosted 10 interns, ranging from a high school senior to graduate students well on their way to their Ph.D. degrees. Each intern conducted research relevant to GFDL’s climate-science mission, and most presented their findings at GFDL and at their home institutions.
This summer, the Educational Partnership Program (EPP) invited its first cohort of Cooperative Science Center (CSC) students to participate in the NOAA Experiential Research and Training Opportunity (NERTO). This program is one of several ways the EPP aims to advance collaborative research in the NOAA-mission sciences through the talent of student researchers, which can also be placed as Undergraduate Scholars and Hollings Scholars. Since 2001, EPP CSCs and other scholarship programs have supported over 2,500 students.
NOAA held an Open House on June 14 at its Seattle Sand Point campus. Four tours were offered that focused on different aspects of NOAA’s mission: Marine Mammal Science - featuring the bone collection; Fisheries Surveys – showing off the net loft; Physical Science – focusing on ocean engineering, the dive center, and the weather forecasting floor; and a Shoreline Restoration walk emphasizing the connection between aquatic environments and our everyday lives.
Dr. Chris Houser was studying rip current development on a beach in Florida when he noticed something curious: many beachgoers were spreading their beach blankets on the sand directly in front of an active rip current and swimming in the rip channel.
Scientists from all NOAA disciplines are contributing expertise and instruments to the Exploratorium museum's new location on the San Francisco waterfront.
You can now count middle and high school students among the growing list of Floridians learning about aquaculture.