What's New
In a new study published in Science, NOAA and NASA scientists used space-borne observations of carbon dioxide (CO2) from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite, or OCO-2, to characterize the tropical atmospheric CO2 response to the strong El Niño event of 2015-2016. The El Niño provided NASA and NOAA an unprecedented opportunity to test the effectiveness of this new observation tool. OCO-2 is NASA’s first satellite designed to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide with the precision, resolution, and coverage necessary to quantify regional carbon sources and sinks.
Observations of carbon dioxide concentrations over the tropical Pacific from the satellite were validated by data from NOAA’s Tropical... more
In the News
Even if we meet our most ambitious climate goal — keeping global temperatures within a strict 1.5 degrees Celsius (or 2.7 degree Fahrenheit) of their preindustrial levels... more
The tropical Pacific Ocean is once again carrying on a will-it-or-won’t-it flirtation with an El Niño event, just a year after the demise of one of the strongest El Niños... more
Self-driving boats, kitted out with scientific sensors, could hold the key to avoiding the next major weather disaster. The boats, created by Saildrone, are being used by... more
Featured Publication
NOAA has led, for 27 years, a team of international scientists in issuing annual reports on the state of the climate focusing on the year just passed. The State of the Climate in 2016 report, published as a supplement to Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in August 2017, is the most recent release of this report. Seven Federal, JISAO (Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, University of Washington), and JIMAR (Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric... more