Highlights Archive

April 21 - May 8 -  NOAA PMEL oceanographers and colleagues continue leading an annual effort to collect key data in understanding  the Bering Sea. This important research cruise provides key insights to monitor events such as sea-ice loss and the...

PMEL has released “The Ocean: Earth’s CO₂ Sponge,” the latest video in the PMEL at Work short video series. The PMEL at Work series highlights ongoing research activities and projects supporting NOAA’s mission to understand changes in the global...

NOAA PMEL oceanographers and colleagues lead an effort to establish first-of-its-kind standards for calculating and reporting trends in ocean acidification observations

For the first time, an international research team compiled a set of best...

Dr. Meghan Cronin of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory has been named a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. Fellows make outstanding contributions to the atmospheric or related oceanic or hydrologic sciences or their...

A typhoon, smoke from wildfires and increasing rain are not what most imagine when thinking of the Arctic. Yet these are some of the climate-driven events included in NOAA’s 2022 Arctic Report Card, which provides a detailed picture of how warming is...

The Pivotal Recovery Story Map (ESRI) recounts the events in 2021 of how NOAA scientists raced against nature to save their most valuable scientific instruments in the Bering Sea. This interactive online map highlights the recovery efforts, the...

PMEL’s Global Observations of Biogeochemistry and Ocean Physics research group is looking for high school teachers and classrooms in the greater Puget Sound region to join our new outreach program, Adopt-A-Float. PMEL researchers are using autonomous...

The 6+ miles-wide asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago wiping out nearly all the dinosaurs and roughly three-quarters of the planet’s plant and animal species also triggered a megatsunami with mile-high waves that new research confirms its...

On July 29, 2022, representatives from NOAA and the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency (BMKG; Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika) signed an updated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that extends the partnership...

Greenhouse gas concentrations, global sea levels and ocean heat content reached record highs in 2021, according to the 32nd annual State of the Climate report, despite a double-dip La Niña event taking place in the Pacific Ocean.

Ocean climate...

The ocean plays a key role in mitigating climate change by absorbing about 25 percent of the carbon dioxide gas (CO2) released into the atmosphere each year by human activities. However, this comes at a cost to ocean health because the uptake of this...

July – August 2022:  PMEL's Sharon Walker joined a team of engineers, multibeam mapping experts, and scientists from around the globe to complete a high-resolution bathymetric and hydrothermal plume survey of the post-eruption caldera at the Hunga...

July 29 - August 4: A team of NOAA and University of Washington Cooperative Institute scientists flew over Alaskan waters to conduct renewed research on Arctic ocean heat flows. Scientists deployed 30 floats from NOAA aircraft that will provide key...

NOAA PMEL, University of Washington and OptoKnowledge Systems, Inc. (OKSI) successfully conducted the first deep water test of a new methane analyzer to measure the concentration and carbon isotope ratio of methane near Axial Seamount. This new...

An annual survey is underway to provide baseline fisheries and oceanographic data to support sustainable management of living resources in the Bering Sea and the rapidly changing US Arctic ecosystem. These surveys provide key data in understanding...

March 31, 2022: The Kuroshio Extension Observatory (KEO) moored buoy was successfully deployed by NOAA PMEL and partners, renewing an ongoing OceanSITES time series that began almost 18 years ago. First deployed in 2004, its time series was disrupted...