NOAA and NIST have installed a Doppler lidar instrument to an existing weather station on top of the Department of Commerce’s Herbert Clark Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. to measure wind flow and turbulence in the lowest part of the atmosphere for a research project studying greenhouse gas emissions in the Capitol area.
Researchers from NOAA and the University of Colorado Boulder have devised a breakthrough method for estimating national emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels using ambient air samples and a well-known isotope of carbon that scientists have relied on for decades to date archaeological sites.
NOAA’s Annual Greenhouse Gas Index tracks the concentrations of greenhouse gases being added to the atmosphere principally from human-caused emissions. The AGGI then calculates the heat being added to Earth's atmosphere and oceans as a result.
A NOAA study published in the journal Nature demonstrates a profound effect of the Montreal Protocol: as levels of ozone-depleting chemicals controlled by the intenational treaty declined, a poleward shift of summertime circulation patterns in the Southern Hemisphere halted.
Carbon dioxide levels reached the highest seasonal peak recorded in 61 years of observations at NOAA's Mauna Loa observatory. This the seventh consecutive year of steep global increases in concentrations of this important greenhouse gas pollutant.
Weather conditions were ripe for a big ozone hole this year. But declining levels of ozone-depleting chemicals kept it to near-average size.
The warming influence from long-lived greenhouse gases rose again in 2017, reflecting ongoing changes to the atmosphere associated predominantly with human activities, NOAA scientists announced today.