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Air Quality

Sunset view from underneath an airplane's wing

NOAA researchers fly out over the Pacific to investigate cloud-forming marine sulfur

While the shade offered by clouds on a hot sunny day can be obvious, quantifying the actual climate impact in terms of solar energy remains a challenging task. This is because the volume, thickness, and lifetime of marine clouds can change rapidly, and the processes that govern how and where clouds  form and how gases and aerosols in the air interact with cloud droplets are highly complex. In a marine environment, many of those gases and aerosols in the air come from the ocean itself. 

Greenhouse gases continued to increase rapidly in 2022

Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide, the three greenhouse gases emitted by human activity that are the most significant contributors to climate change, continued their historically high rates of growth in the atmosphere during 2022, according to NOAA scientists. 

An uncrewed aerial system sails in towards a sei whale to attach an acoustic recording tag that will help monitor impacts of human-caused noise on whale behavior. This is the first time a drone was used to tag free-swimming large whales in U.S. waters. Photo taken by Laura Howes under NOAA Fisheries Permit No. 18786-06.

NOAA Science Report features new data-gathering drones, advances in wind, weather and water forecasts

Discovering a 207-year-old whaling ship, advancing air-quality forecasts, improving storm surge and wind forecasts, and deploying the first-ever drone-based tagging of endangered whales. These are a few of the more than 60 stories about NOAA’s many notable scientific accomplishments from the past year that are featured in the 2022 NOAA Science Report, which emphasizes a wide range of impacts that NOAA science advancements have on the lives of Americans. 

 

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