Due to human-caused climate change, our planet’s ocean has been heating up at a rate of 0.6 degrees C (0.11 degrees F) per decade over the past century. But this warming isn’t uniform.
The giant methane cloud spotted by satellite over the U.S. Southwest that made national headlines in 2014 wasn’t a persistent, undiscovered “hotspot” as first thought, but the result of a nightly atmospheric condition and topography that trapped industrial and natural emissions of the potent greenhouse gas near the ground in the basin overnight, according to new research published in the journal Elementa by CIRES and NOAA.
On December 10, 2020, the NOAA Ocean Exploration Advisory Board (OEAB) will hold its 18th meeting. With the June 2020 release of the National Strategy for Mapping, Exploring, and Characterizing the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, ocean exploration is in the spotlight. During the December meeting, the OEAB will make recommendations to the administration for advancing ocean exploration over the next 6-12 months. It will do so with five new members on board.
NOAA’s hurricane gliders are returning home after a successful journey during the 2020 hurricane season. These gliders were deployed off the coasts of Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Gulf of Mexico, and the eastern U.S. to collect data for scientists to use to improve the accuracy of hurricane forecast models.
A new book published by the American Geophysical Union provides first detailed examination of how climate change may influence El Niño and La Niña.
The social and economic impacts of COVID-19 have battered small- and medium-sized enterprises, putting millions of jobs in the U.S. at risk. And a year rife with natural disasters has not done the many already struggling businesses any favors.
Editor's note: AGU released the following story by science writer Rachel Fritts on October 13, 2020 on NOAA-led research.
New research reveals temperatures in the deep sea fluctuate more than scientists previously thought and a warming trend is now detectable at the bottom of the ocean.