Highlights Archive

July 17 to Aug. 4, 2023: A team of NOAA and industry uncrewed aircraft professionals conducted flight operations at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Lompoc, California, to expand and test the use of uncrewed aircraft to gather critical observational...

NOAA and partner scientists recently completed two successful field tests in the US Arctic merging new technologies and traditional ship surveys to assess real-time phytoplankton species distributions in response to surface warming. 

The rapid...

The year 2022 was marked by unusual (though not unprecedented) disruptions in the climate system including a “triple-dip” La Niña nearly continuous from August 2020 through the end of 2022, extraordinary amount of precipitation over Antarctica in...

The 120-day Tropical Pacific Observing System (TPOS) 2023 Saildrone Mission officially began on June 22, 2023, just after the official start of what experts suggest may be a strong El Niño. The three Saildrone, Inc. Explorer-class Uncrewed Surface...

May 15 – June 11, 2023: The Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) recently hosted NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) on a research cruise aboard the KIOST ship R/V ISABU to maintain moorings as part of the multi...

Climate change already affects every part of the globe, with potentially dire consequences for many ecosystems and human communities. Reducing human-caused emissions of greenhouse gasses, including carbon dioxide, is the most important strategy for...

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...