On March 14, NOAA will welcome Jeremy Weirich as the new Director of NOAA Ocean Exploration.
Spectacular footage from inside a hurricane; a major ocean mapping milestone; new insights on the continued impacts of climate change, and much more -- 2021 was a busy year for NOAA Research. As the year draws to a close, we’re taking a look back at a few of our biggest research stories of the last 12 months.
Craig N. McLean, assistant administrator of NOAA Research, who began his NOAA career as a uniformed officer in the NOAA Corps four decades ago and rose to lead the agency’s research division and become a champion of ocean exploration, scientific integrity and science diplomacy, has announced his plan to retire from public service on April 1, 2022.
Two million square kilometers. Or 772,204 square miles. That’s more than one quarter the size of the contiguous United States. And it’s the area of seafloor mapped by NOAA Ocean Exploration using the modern, high-resolution multibeam sonar system aboard NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer since the ship was commissioned in 2008.
The West Coast continental shelf is known to host methane bubble streams, formerly thought to be rare. Now, a new discovery sheds light on the extent and distribution of seafloor methane seeps.
The NOAA Ship Discoverer will be a state-of-the-art ship that operates around the nation and the world to study and explore the ocean.
Congress voted on January 1, 2021 to reauthorize and strengthen the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, a 23-year old program created by Congress to facilitate ocean-related partnerships between federal agencies, academia and industry to advance ocean science research and education.The reauthorization passed Congress as an amendment included in Section 1055 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.
NOAA scientists collect critical ice and atmospheric data in the Arctic, use innovative approaches to track ocean acidification, build elegant climate and ecosystem models - and so much more. That work leads to more accurate weather forecasts and an overall deeper understanding of the intricacies of our planet.