What's New Archive
Scientists from PMEL’s Ecosystems & Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (EcoFOCI) group set sail on April 30 for the first major cruise of Gulf of Alaska Integrated Ecosystem Research Program (GOA-IERP). Led by PMEL's Dr. Nancy Kachel, EcoFOCI and GOA-IERP will look at oceanographic and climate influences, and relationships between trophic levels in a changing ecosystem and will include zooplankton sampling, hydrographic measurements, water and iron sampling.
For more information on this expedition please visit the EcoFOCI cruise website.
PMEL scientists, Dr. Tim Bates and Dr. Patricia Quinn, will lead the US component of the Coordinated Investigation of Climate-Cryosphere Interactions (CICCI) project based out of Svalbard, Norway during the month of April. PMEL will fly two Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) equipped with sensors to measure aerosol properties to help understand the processes controlling the distribution of black carbon in the Arctic atmosphere.
Stay up to date with the mission by following the blog and visit PMEL’s Atmospheric Chemistry page and the CICCI project page for more information.
Using data from two hydrophones, Dr. Bob Dziak and his acoustics team at PMEL and Oregon State University captured the sounds of the March 11 Mw 9.0 earthquake that shook Japan and sent a tsunami wave across the Pacific Ocean. The hydrophones recorded the seismic and acoustic arrivals of the earthquake, known as P- and T-waves respectively.
To listen and learn more about P- and T-waves, please visit the Vents Acoustic Program web page.
Research models developed at PMEL’s NOAA Center for Tsunami Research and installed at NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers accurately predicted the wave arrival time within 15 minutes for Hawaii, Alaska, and the U.S. West Coast during the Honshu tsunami event on March 11. The 9.0 magnitude earthquake was detected by a Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART®) 3 minutes after the earthquake and the tsunami was measured 25 minutes later.
For more information on this tsunami event, including colorful maps, wave height information for U.S. beaches, and a YouTube animation please visit the Honshu Event Page.
PMEL recently launched its own YouTube channel where you will find our stories and research come to life with videos, photos, and animations often narrated by the scientists that do the research. On the PMEL YouTube channel you can learn how a tsunami forecast is generated, listen to the sounds of the Arctic, watch an animation on the latest buoy technology, plus much more.
Check out www.youtube.com/NOAAPMEL and watch NOAA stories come to life.
PMEL’s carbon group has launched a completely revised and enhanced website. The new site describes the wealth of activities the carbon group performs from ocean acidification research to using wave gliders to conduct important field work. You can also access the Carbon Groups extensive data set using a Google Earth interactive tool.
Take a minute and explore the new website at www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2.
In recent press, notably the New York Times, Arctic atmosphere circulation has been a hot topic. PMEL's Dr. Jim Overland explains that the Polar Vortex, a ring of winds circling the North Pole and providing a fence keeping cold air north, has broken down for the second year in a row. This breakdown allows cold air to spill south, affecting the U.S. East Coast and other regions.
For more information on the Arctic atmosphere please visit the 2010 Arctic Report Card page and for the latest research on the Arctic visit the Arctic Future web site.
After 40 years of service to NOAA, Dr. Eddie Bernard will retire at the end of 2010. His career began in 1970 in the NOAA Corps and in 1982, he became the director of PMEL. A noted expert on tsunamis, Dr. Bernard received his PhD in Oceanography from Texas A&M University. During his time as director of PMEL, Dr. Bernard has received numerous honors and awards including two Department of Commerce Gold Medals, three Presidential Meritorious Awards, and a Service to America Medal.
PMEL wishes Dr. Bernard well in his retirement and thanks him for his exceptional leadership. You can visit the About the Director page for more information on Dr. Bernard’s NOAA career.
To better understand the effects of the ocean on global climate and weather, scientists from PMEL deployed an Ocean Climate Station mooring on the edge of the warm Agulhas Return Current (ARC) southeast of South Africa. This mooring will provide critical data on how this powerful current warms the atmosphere and how it affects the local metrology and climate.
The ARC mooring is part the PMEL Ocean Climate Station program, a contribution to the global network of time series reference sites.
Dr. Richard Feely, a senior scientist at PMEL, will be honored with the Heinz Environmental Award at a ceremony in Washington D.C. on November 15. The 16th Heinz awards focused on Global Change, and Dr. Feely is credited with playing a leading role in examining the acidification of oceans and shifting public policy to address this growing issue.
Please join PMEL is congratulating Dr. Feely on this well deserved honor. You can find out more about the important work Dr. Feely and the carbon group are doing on the Ocean Acidification web site.