Findings could help improve air quality in cities across the U.S. West.
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.
New research on wind behavior in complex terrain, led by NOAA and the U.S. Department of Energy, will improve forecasts for wind energy firms by 15-25 percent, and improve wind forecasts for the entire country.
The University of Colorado has been awarded funding for development of an improved global map of smoke, dust and other aerosol particles.
New NOAA research demonstrates that drones and weather balloons can gather data needed to improve weather forecasts in severe working environments.
Emissions of one of the chemicals most responsible for the Antarctic ozone hole are on the rise, despite an international treaty that required an end to its production in 2010, a new NOAA study shows.
A a new NOAA study shows that during the morning rush hour in Boulder, Colorado, the trail of chemical vapors emitted by personal care products that commuters use on their skin and hair are comparable in magnitude to the emissions of major components of vehicle exhaust.
The Montreal Protocol, the international treaty adopted to restore Earth’s protective ozone layer, has had a major side benefit - reducing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S.
In the lonely reaches of northwestern North Dakota and across the border into Saskatchewan, the vast Bakken oil field hosts extensive activities to extract both crude oil and natural gas. Business is booming—production increased by 30 percent between May 2013 and May 2014. More than a quarter of the total gas produced from the Bakken operations can’t be processed fast enough, though, and the common industry practice is to flare it—burn it off as it is vented to the atmosphere. Jutting 30 feet upward like enormous lit matchsticks, the flares pose a new question for atmospheric scientists: What do the flares put into the air? A new NOAA-led study has produced the first direct measurements of how much black carbon—a major component of airborne particles that are commonly referred to as soot —is emitted by the Bakken flaring operations.