News

New lab and program names highlight critical NOAA work

Several of the labs and programs that make up NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research are getting new names to better reflect their mission and contributions, thanks to a newly-announced reorganization effort.

ESRL Scientists Receive Colorado Governor's Award for High-Impact Research

NOAA scientists in the ESRL Global Monitoring and Chemical Sciences Divisions and CIRES at the University of Colorado Boulder receive a 2019 Colorado Governor's Award for High-Impact Research.

2019 ozone hole smallest on record

Abnormal weather patterns in the upper atmosphere over Antarctica dramatically limited ozone depletion in September and October, resulting in the smallest ozone hole observed since 1982.

Airborne research shows East Coast cities emitting twice as much methane as estimated

A new NOAA and University of Michigan study using an instrumented airplane has found unexpectedly large emissions over five major cities along the East Coast - twice the total amount of methane and almost 10 times the amount estimated from natural gas.

Surprisingly large carbon uptake by North American biosphere during El Niños

New analysis of NOAA’s long-term air samples by NOAA and CIRES scientists finds that the North American terrestrial biosphere takes up unexpectedly large amounts of carbon in response to elevated carbon dioxide levels during El Niño years.

Carbon dioxide levels hit record peak in May

Atmospheric carbon dioxide continued its rapid rise in 2019, with the average for May peaking at 414.7 parts per million at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego announced today.

Who’s the source of a banned ozone-destroying chemical?

NOAA scientist Stephen Montzka and colleagues announced in 2018 that emissions of an ozone-destroying chemical responsible for creating the Antarctic ozone hole were unexpectedly rising again. A new study published in Nature reports that since 2013, about 7,000 more metric tons of the banned chlorofluorocarbon CFC-11 have been emitted each year from eastern China than were emitted between 2008 and 2012, on average.

Former NOAA employee Christina Koch greets NOAA from the International Space Station

It's not every day you get a message from space. But on May 21, former NOAA employee Christina Koch greeted attendees at NOAA's 47th Global Monitoring Annual Conference from the International Space Station.

Rising emissions drive Greenhouse Gas Index increase

Record levels of greenhouse gas pollution continued to increase humanity’s impact on the atmosphere’s heat-trapping capacity during 2018, according to a yearly analysis released by NOAA scientists.

US methane emissions flat since 2006 despite increased oil and gas activity: study

Natural gas production in the United States has increased 46 percent since 2006, but there has been no significant increase of total US methane emissions and only a modest increase from oil and gas activity, according to a new NOAA study.

Global carbon dioxide growth in 2018 reached 4th highest on record

By the end of 2018, NOAA’s atmospheric observatory at Mauna Loa recorded the fourth-highest annual growth in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in 60 years of record-keeping.

Ozone hole modest despite conditions ripe for depletion

The ozone hole that forms in the upper atmosphere over Antarctica each September was slightly above average size in 2018, NOAA and NASA scientists reported today.

Study sheds light on persistent gap in natural gas methane emissions measurements

It’s a question that’s puzzled policymakers, researchers and regulatory agencies for years: How much methane is being emitted from natural gas operations across the U.S.? And why have the two main estimation methods applied across U.S. oil and gas basins always seem to disagree?

Story map: NOAA Boulder

From the foothills of the Rockies, NOAA’s pioneering science, life-saving products, and enduring contributions to America’s economy have enormous impact.

After a 20 Year hiatus, GMD scientists will return to sampling the stratosphere with the NASA ER-2 aircraft

An airborne project with NOAA and CIRES instrument investigators in the Global Monitoring Division was selected for five-year funding starting in 2020 through 2025 from the NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-3 program (EVS-3).