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.
Barely had the ink dried on the partnership agreement signed by NOAA and ocean explorer Victor Vescovo, owner of Caladan Oceanic LLC, when his team headed out to the Pacific Ocean to dive and map the Mariana Trench, and answer the questions -- how deep and where exactly is the bottom of the ocean.
World View Enterprises has offered to carry a miniaturized NOAA instrument on its high-altitude balloon to capture measurements of atmospheric particles on a series of flights in 2021 that will last weeks and cover thousands of miles at altitudes above 55,000 feet.
NOAA has launched a wide-ranging research effort to investigate the impact of reduced vehicle traffic, air travel, shipping, manufacturing and other activities on Earth’s atmosphere and oceans due to the response to COVID-19.
Sometimes to understand the present, it takes looking to the past. That’s the approach coastal researchers, supported by the NOAA Climate Program Office Climate Observations and Monitoring (COM) Program, are taking to pinpoint the causes of extreme sea level changes.