NOAA Research News

2022 was a busy year for volcanic eruptions with Hawaii's Mauna Loa and Kilaeau erupting simultaneously, along with Mount Semeru, Indonesia and the Hunga undersea volcano in Tonga. While the United States Geological Survey is the primary agency that monitors volcanic activity in the United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) oversees safety systems for tsunamis and other volcano-related threats, as well as studies the impact of volcanic gasses on our global climate. 

Major hurricanes, intense wildfires, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses, deep sea discoveries, and more made 2022 an eventful year for NOAA Research. As we enter the final days of the year, we’re taking a look back at some of our biggest accomplishments from the last 12 months. 

Protecting and exploring our global ocean is a huge job: It covers more than 70 percent of Earth’s surface. Cutting-edge technologies help us dive deeper, gather more ocean data and solve some of its biggest challenges.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration today announced it has selected the University of Oklahoma to host NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations (CISHIWRO).

NOAA scientists and priorities are well reflected in several of the first Ocean Decade actions endorsed and announced this week by the United Nations Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC).

American and European scientists are deploying dozens of autonomous and remotely-piloted instrument platforms to capture simultaneous observations of the lower atmosphere and the upper ocean offshore of Barbados with unprecedented detail.

NOAA plans to expand its research in the Great Lakes region as the agency teams up with the travel company Viking to carry scientists aboard new expedition voyages planned to begin in 2022.

Editor's note: We are sharing a news release that XPRIZE issued this week on the competition for the $1 million Bonus Prize sponsored by NOAA.

As the world’s leader in designing and managing incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges, XPRIZE announced this week that the three finalist teams competing for the $1 million Bonus Prize sponsored by NOAA, in its Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, have tested their technologies in Ponce, Puerto Rico.