News & Features

The National Marine Sanctuary Climate Change Science Priorities Workshop Report is now available to the public. The report summarizing a cross-NOAA workshop held in January 2021 organized to identify the climate science and information needs of national marine sanctuaries, and actions needed to meet those needs.

If the Arctic continues to warm, the western Arctic Ocean could be a future hot spot and source of nitrous oxide, a new study has found. Like carbon dioxide or methane, nitrous oxide is directly linked to climate change, contributing to both the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion.

On June 21, 2021, Ben DeAngelo, CPO Deputy Director, and Billy Sweet, Oceanographer with NOAA’s National Ocean Service (NOS), presented to Florida Keys officials. The presentation discussed the causes and impacts of climate change, and covered sea level rise science, projections, and risk management.

Launched on June 17, 2021, the United Nations Special Report on Drought 2021 warned of rising exposure to the natural hazard. Within the next 80 years, 129 countries will experience an increase in drought exposure mainly due to climate change, and 38 countries primarily due to the interaction between climate change and population growth.

NOAA’s Climate Program Office (CPO) is pleased to announce $950,000 for four new projects that will support decision making in neighborhoods grappling with inequitably distributed impacts from the deadliest weather-related risk in the United States: extreme heat.

Summary: Multiple U.S. coastal regions may see rapid increases in the number of high-tide flooding days in the mid-2030s, according to a new study. The combined effects of sea-level rise and natural fluctuations in tidal range are anticipated to cause tipping points in the frequency of high-tide flooding. These tipping points can produce acute impacts in underserved communities not prepared for the consequences.

The Southern Hemisphere’s stratosphere is cleaner than the Northern Hemisphere’s. A NOAA-NASA airborne mission that measured very small particles and trace gases in the lower stratosphere indicated that the cause of the relatively polluted Northern Hemisphere stratosphere is aircraft emissions.

The U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit now includes a Southeast Region section. The section features narratives, tools, and case studies on the impacts of climate change across the Southeast, and information on how people can build resilience to climate change

A new study finds that raising modeled mountains reduces modeled rainfall biases. By underestimating the height of mountain ranges, climate models have shown biases in their representation of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), a tropical rainband that delivers significant precipitation.

So you think you know what’s in the ocean? Even with decades of scientific research, more than 80 percent of the ocean remains unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored. That’s a lot considering more than 70 percent of the globe is covered by the ocean. NOAA is using Argo floats, gliders, drifters, and moored buoys to better understand the ocean depth