News & Features

The same processes that emit carbon dioxide often emit pollutants that harm air quality: nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter. A new study finds that carbon-mitigation policies that don’t account for co-emitted pollutants may worsen air quality and raise mortality rates.

By examining “humid heat,” wet-bulb temperature more accurately assesses the human health effects of heat than measurements of temperature alone. A new study finds that wet-bulb temperatures increased in most land regions over 1979–2019.

NOAA postdoc Nastassia Patin recounts her journey aboard a French schooner in January and February 2022. The mission’s goal was to characterize, quantify, and model Atlantic Ocean ecosystems.

Climate simulations from multiple models indicate that future changes in the patterns and frequency of tropical cyclone genesis will largely be governed by human-induced changes in atmospheric circulation.

Prediction and Research Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic (PIRATA) aims to improve predictability of ocean-atmosphere interactions in the tropical Atlantic. The PIRATA Northeast Extension (PNE) recently deployed buoys into the northeastern reachers of the tropical Atlantic Ocean. Follow the journey through this story map.

Seasonal predictions may be routine, “subseasonal” predictions are more difficult. The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), a large complex of tropical thunderstorms, dominates subseasonal phenomena over the tropics. A new global atmosphere-ocean-land-sea ice coupled climate model shows an average MJO prediction skill of 30 days, placing it among the world’s best MJO prediction models.

A new study finds that El Niño events will have greater amplitude and persistence in the second half of the 21st century, leading to increased global impacts on temperature and precipitation.

For the second year in a row, NOAA scientists observed a record annual increase in atmospheric levels of methane, a powerful, heat-trapping greenhouse gas that’s the second biggest contributor to human-caused global warming after carbon dioxide.

A 2021 Nature Geoscience paper argued that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) started slowing in the 19th century, and slowed more in the mid-20th century. But a new Nature Geoscience paper suggests that AMOC changes are still uncertain.

A first-of-its-kind guidebook tells planners how to manage and mitigate urban heat. The new book covers urban heat islands and building urban heat resilience.