Understanding the biologic contribution of CO2 to megacities' overall carbon emissions will be important for designing and evaluating mitigation strategies.
A miniaturized aerosol spectrometer developed by scientists in NOAA’s Chemical Sciences Labotatory will be one of several insttuments making sure air in the living spaces of the International Space Station stays safe.
The study evaluated all of the aviation industry’s contributing factors to climate change, including emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide, and the effect of contrails and contrail cirrus – short-lived clouds created in jet engine exhaust plumes at aircraft cruise altitudes that reflect sunlight during the day and trap heat trying to escape at night.
NOAA's HRRR-Smoke model may still be designated as experimental, but when wildfires are burning, many count on it for smoke forecasts.
Improving Arctic sea ice forecasts is a high priority for NOAA, as indigenous communities, fisheries, ecotourism, oil and gas industries, shipping concerns, wildlife managers and scientists need better information in a region that is rapidly shifting from a reliable frozen ice cap to an open-water ocean. Check out an animation of this summer's Arctic snow and ice melt.
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 scientists have introduced a new way to measure the impact of marine heat waves.
Running on the newest version of NOAA’s Global Forecast System, or GFS, the FV3-Chem model forecasts the distribution of some primary air pollutants: smoke, soot, organic carbon, sulfate, and large and small particles of dust and sea salt - collectively known as aerosols. Because these aerosols affect the weather, the model also provides weather forecasts.
A new NOAA analysis of ocean temperature data finds that for the 52-year period from 1968 to 2019, 72 to 79 percent of the ocean area showed warming, while only 1 to 3 percent exhibited cooling.
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.