Features

A black swan event is a situation so rare that few people would have imagined it was possible. In November 2016, researchers were caught off guard by just such an event: extremely low sea ice extents in both the Arctic and Antarctic.

Blocked for decades by an impassable dam, 11.2 miles of prime habitat are now open to endangered Caifornia coho salmon. Access to the upper stream elevations will make the salmon and steelhead trout that migrate into the Russian River watershed to spawn much more resilient to temperature and drought extremes.

The author of the glacier chapter of the 2015 State of the Climate report and his daughter talk about how family connections brought them together scientifically, and how science keeps bringing their family together.

Every year hundreds of scientists from scores of countries team up to give the Earth's climate a comprehensive physical. Edited by NOAA scientists and published by the American Meteorological Society, the State of the Climate in 2015 draws on tens of thousands of observations of everything from forest fires to fish migration to catalog climate variability and change.

From protecting our waterways to reducing overfishing, we've made a lot of progress since the first Earth Day. Take a look at five big wins in the 46 years since 1970.

Increasing air and sea surface temperatures, decreasing sea ice extent and Greenland ice sheet mass, and changing behavior of fish and walrus are among key observations released today in the Arctic Report Card 2015.

The annual State of the Climate reports involve more than 400 international authors from more than 50 countries. Two chapter authors reflect on what it means to play a part in such an ambitious report.

Fish nursery. Bird sanctuary. Storm surge blocker. Maryland’s Blackwater Marsh Wildlife Refuge is all those things and more. And it could be completely underwater by the end of this century. A team of ecologists and climate experts is determined to find and conserve migration corridors for the critical wetland ecosystem.

A worldwide network of Argo floats gives scientists an unprecedented understanding of the ocean depths. Argo floats descend and ascend through the top 2,000 meters of the ocean, collecting observations as they move.

We're nine laps into the race to set a new global annual temperature record. NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt talks about how this year's race might end--and why yearly rankings tell us less about the big picture of climate change than we might think.