NOAA News

On May 9, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time since measurements began in 1958. It marks an important milestone because Mauna Loa, as the oldest continuous carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement station in the world, is the primary global benchmark site for monitoring the increase of this potent heat-trapping gas.

According to NOAA scientists, the average temperature for the contiguous United States during April was 49.7°F, 1.4°F below the 20th-century average. It was the 23rd coolest April on record. Below-average temperatures dominated the central United States.

The first of six instruments that will fly on GOES-R, NOAA’s next-generation of geostationary operational environmental satellites, has been completed seven months before its scheduled installation onto the spacecraft.

After a thoughtful and deliberate review, today NOAA released a report on the National Weather Service’s performance during hurricane/post tropical cyclone Sandy. The report, Hurricane/Post Tropical Cyclone Sandy Service Assessment, reaffirms that the National Weather Service provided accurate forecasts for Sandy, giving people early awareness of the significant storm churning toward the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

NOAA is using data from a new current meter in New York harbor, operated by one of its academic partners, New Jersey’s Stevens Institute of Technology, to provide enhanced real-time information to mariners travelling through the nation’s second busiest port.

This week, the National Weather Service completed the dual-polarization technology update in Brownsville, Texas – concluding the 122 NWS radar site upgrades throughout the country. This new advanced technology is helping federal weather forecasters more accurately track, assess and warn the public of approaching high-impact weather.

For scientists studying summer sea ice in the Arctic, it’s not a question of “if” there will be nearly ice-free summers, but “when.” And two scientists say that “when” is sooner than many thought — before 2050 and possibly within the next decade or two.

Sandy has been retired from the official list of Atlantic Basin tropical cyclone names by the World Meteorological Organization’s hurricane committee because of the extreme impacts it caused from Jamaica and Cuba to the Mid-Atlantic United States in October 2012.

While the economy has shown signs of recovery over the past year, continued fiscal uncertainty and tight budgets mean that government agencies, like so many families and businesses across the country, still face tough choices. At NOAA, we’re working to fulfill our core mission of science, service and stewardship and balance investments in current and future programs and services.

After nearly 11 years of helping the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predict weather and climate patterns and save lives in search and rescue operations, NOAA announced today it has turned off the NOAA-17 Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite (POES). It was one of NOAA's longest operating spacecraft, which have a typical lifespan of three years.

NOAA received the prestigious 2013 Space Achievement Award today from the Space Foundation "for its use of space-based systems in making life-saving predictions and issuing early warnings of calamitous weather conditions."

According to a newly-published NOAA-led study in Geophysical Research Letters, as the globe warms from rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, more moisture in a warmer atmosphere will make the most extreme precipitation events more intense.

NOAA’s Fisheries Service, in response to a petition submitted by the WildEarth Guardians and Friends of Animals is proposing to list four populations of scalloped hammerhead sharks under the Endangered Species Act, two as threatened and two as endangered.

Clouds over the central Greenland Ice Sheet last July were “just right” for driving surface temperatures there above the melting point, according to a new study by scientists at NOAA and the Universities of Wisconsin, Idaho and Colorado.

The federal government, the State of New York, and the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe have announced a $19.4 million settlement with Alcoa Inc. and Reynolds Metals Company for injuries to natural resources, recreational fishing, and Mohawk culture resulting from the release of hazardous substances into the St. Lawrence River environment since at least the late 1950s.

In partnership with State and Tribal agencies, the Obama Administration today released the first nationwide strategy to help public and private decision makers address the impacts that climate change is having on natural resources and the people and economies that depend on them. Developed in response to a request by Congress, the National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy is the product of extensive national dialogue that spanned nearly two years and was shaped by comments from more than 55,000 Americans.

If current population trends continue, the already crowded U.S. coast will see population grow from 123 million people to nearly 134 million people by 2020, putting more of the population at increased risk from extreme coastal storms, which severely damaged infrastructure and property last year.

New England is expected to experience a "moderate" red tide this spring and summer, which may result in closure of some shellfish harvesting beds to prevent possible illness to consumers who might eat contaminated food, according to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists funded by NOAA studying the toxic algae that cause the harmful blooms in the Gulf of Maine.

NOAA and state and federal agencies that participate in the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program are partnering again this year for National Tsunami Preparedness Week, March 24 - 30. During the week, NOAA urges coastal residents and visitors to be prepared for a tsunami and encourages communities to become TsunamiReady.

According to NOAA scientists, the globally-averaged temperature for March 2013 tied with 2006 as the 10th warmest March since record keeping began in 1880. It also marked the 37th consecutive March and 337th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average.