Highlights Archive

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, human activity has increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) released into the Earth's atmosphere, with nearly 30% of that CO₂ being absorbed by the oceans. Decades of observations have shown that the...

You might imagine the bottom of the ocean’s deepest point, seven miles down, to be a very quiet place. However, NOAA and partner scientists, making the first recordings from the Challenger Deep trough in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, found...

Lu Dong and Michael McPhaden's recently published paper in the Journal of Climate is featured as a Research Highlight by Nature Climate Change on April 5, 2017. The paper analyzes why the relationship between the decadal Indian Ocean Basin (IOB) mode...

Invasive species are one of the world’s most serious environmental problems, ranking as the second most serious cause to biodiversity declines (next to habitat loss). Key U.S. aquatic systems—including the Great Lakes, San Francisco Bay, and...

Axial Seamount, 300 miles off the coast of Oregon and 0.7 miles beneath the ocean's surface, is situated along a mid-ocean ridge where two ocean plates are moving apart. It is the most active submarine volcano in the northeast Pacific Ocean, with...

"…the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) created a novel partnership in 2007 to support an ecosystem-scale study to examine how a changing climate and changing sea-ice conditions affect the EBS ecosystem...

Decadal repeats of high-quality, full-depth, coast-to-coast global surveys of ocean water properties have been revisited since the 1980s. These surveys were completed first under the auspices of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, then CLIVAR/CO2...

The heat from submarine volcanoes produces hundreds of hydrothermal hot springs along the mid-ocean ridge crest. These springs promote the exchange of heat and chemicals between the Earth’s crust and the ocean, providing energy to support ecosystems...

Changes in large-scale ocean circulation due to climate change appear to be underway throughout the world ocean and stand to significantly affect marine ecosystems and resources. This new study by McClatchie et al. investigated whether changes in the...

Every year NOAA leads a team of international scientists in issuing a report on the state of the climate in the year just passed, published as a supplement to Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Nine Federal, JISAO, and JIMAR scientists...

Wind forcing is fundamental to the ocean circulation. According to the classic "Ekman" theory developed in the early twentieth century, wind-induced steady flow spirals to the right of the wind stress in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the...

A major unanswered question about El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is why the largest El Niño events are stronger in magnitude than the largest La Niña events. This paper examines one of the leading hypotheses to explain this asymmetric behavior...

Studying where some of the smallest organisms in the ocean are located can be difficult when they are found beneath the surface. In the late summer and early fall, phytoplankton in the Chukchi Sea are usually found in thin, patchy layers that can...

Ocean Climate Station Papa is a time series site located in the eastern subarctic Pacific where atmospheric carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean. A moored buoy has been measuring the carbon content of both the surface ocean and surface atmosphere...

Pressure gradients between the Gulf of Mexico and the Tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean drive intense, intermittent northerly winds through gaps in the mountainous Central American isthmus. These wind jets have long been known to influence oceanographic...

The flow of energy from Earth to Ocean creates life-sustaining habitats in the deep sea that likely hosted some of the earliest life forms on the planet. Finding hydrothermal ecosystems often relies on identifiable plumes from "black smoker" vents...