Picture a calm, sunny day at a tropical beach. You look out at the ocean and in the distance a flotilla of small white clouds sails close to the waves. It’s ideal weather and typical of many days in the tropical Atlantic. However, scientists don’t fully understand how these ubiquitous clouds (a type of “shallow convective cloud”) form and impact the ocean, and it represents one of the largest uncertainties in predicting climate change.
New research by NOAA and a visiting scientist from India shows that warming of the Indo-Pacific Ocean is altering rainfall patterns from the tropics to the United States, contributing to declines in rainfall on the United States west and east coasts.
NOAA scientists Patricia Quinn, Ph.D., of the Pacific Marine Environmental Lab, and Leo Donner, Ph.D., of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab, were named today as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
An annual zooplankton surveys help scientists track the health of the Bering and Chukchi seas.
A tiny seabird's struggle is emblematic of a changing Arctic.
For scientists at NOAA, Earth Day — and every other day of the year — is about getting to the bottom of some of the most pressing questions about the planet we call home: how it works, how it’s changing, and how humans are affecting it.
Invasive species can be disastrous for local ecosystems, and the invasive silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) is no exception.
NOAA and partner scientists speaking Friday, August 17, at the Goldschmidt annual international conference on geochemistry reported their research is finding that coastal waters and river estuaries are more vulnerable to ocean acidification than offshore waters. These waters are more severely affected by ocean acidification because they receive fresh water runoff that contributes to higher levels of dissolved carbon dioxide.
Editor's note: This is the second in a series Dispatches from the Arctic on the August science cruise by NOAA and partner scientists aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy. Today's post is from Meredith LaValley of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee and the NOAA Communications team.