NOAA’s newest high performance computer used for research to advance weather, climate and ecosystem prediction was named number 88 among the top 500 high performance computers in the world based on computing capacity, according to Top500.org.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa Observatory reached a seasonal peak of 417.1 parts per million for 2020 in May, the highest monthly reading ever recorded. Monthly CO2 values at Mauna Loa first breached the 400 ppm threshold in 2014, and are now at levels not experienced by the atmosphere in several million years.
Running barefoot from scorching asphalt to cool grass in the summertime as a kid, you likely learned how cityscapes tend to get much warmer than green spaces. Extreme heat can be fatal, and buildings and pavement increase its threat, making some parts of cities up to 20°F hotter than other parts.
A NOAA study published in Nature Geosciences takes a new look at faint, old smoke and finds that it is just as important an influence on the climate as the thick plumes produced by active fires.
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.