Highlights Archive

The scientific community and the popular press were abuzz in early 2014 with the possibility that a "monster" El Niño was incubating in the tropical Pacific. Oceanic and atmospheric conditions then suggested similarities with the onset of the 1997/98...

Every year NOAA leads a team of international scientists in issuing a report on the state of the climate in the year just passed, published as a supplement to Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Ten Federal, JISAO, and JIMAR scientists...

In June 2015,Oceanography released a special issue on Emerging Themes in Ocean Acidification Science. The papers in this issue were written in conjunction with the 2013 Ocean Acidification Principle Investigator's Meeting, organized by the Ocean...

Remarkably high sea surface temperature anomalies developed in the NE Pacific Ocean during the winter of 2013/14. This caught the attention of Nick Bond of the University of Washington's Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean...

Clouds, which cover about 60% of the Earth at any given time, have a large impact on the planet's radiation balance by reflecting solar radiation back to space and trapping infrared radiation emitted by the surface. Clouds only form through the...

Even though ~75% of Earth's volcanic activity occurs below the sea surface, many questions remain on the longevity and acoustic characteristics of explosive seafloor eruptions. To date, only two active eruptions have ever been observed visually in...

The ocean plays an important role in global climate through the transport and storage of carbon, yet it is unclear how ocean warming and acidification will influence ocean carbon cycling on societally relevant timescales. This uncertainty is largely...

It has become well accepted that Westerly Wind Events (WWE) lasting for about a week play a fundamental role in the onset and maintenance of El Niño events in the tropical Pacific. In this paper we show that there are wind events of similar size and...

In December, Pure and Applied Geophysics (PAGEOPH) published the topical issue, Tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean: 2011-2012, which contains 21 new papers discussing tsunami events that occurred in this two-year span. PMEL scientists contributed three of...

Sea snails that build aragonite shells are also known as pteropods. They are a prolific upper-ocean zooplankton, especially abundant in high-latitudinal environments in the Arctic and the Southern Ocean but also found in highly productive upwelling...

Improved understanding of new potential Arctic-lower latitude weather linkages and implications for weather and climate predictions

The role of the Arctic in the global climate system is based on multiple processes unique to the Arctic, driven by...

Previous research indicates that low-frequency ocean noise levels have risen 3 to 4 times since the early 1960s in some areas. This rise has been largely attributed to increased global ship traffic. The scientific community has become increasingly...

There is increasing scientific and public awareness that the Cascadia subduction zone, an active plate boundary fault off the coast of the Pacific Northwest (PNW), is capable of generating great earthquakes (magnitude 9 or larger). Concern over the...

Many marine species have a larval phase. In this phase, larvae drifts with the prevailing ocean currents before settling in nursery locations. In such cases, the spawning locations can be represented as sources and the settling locations of the...

Breaking waves on the ocean surface produce bubbles that burst at the air-sea interface and inject sea spray aerosol (SSA) into the atmosphere ranging in size from 0.01 to 20 micrometers. This process is the dominant source of aerosol particle mass...

With the buildup of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, more energy enters the top of the atmosphere than escapes. About 93% of this energy imbalance has warmed the ocean, with about 3% warming the land, 3% melting ice, and 1% warming and adding...