News & Research Highlights

As Hurricanes Franklin and Idalia strengthened in late August, NOAA scientists collected critical data from the air, sea surface, and underwater to enhance forecasts and increase scientific knowledge.

Predictions of temperature, precipitation and other changes in a warming world rely largely on model simulations that often render diverging results when presented in map view. By showing data in a behavioral phase space, patterns become apparent.

On September 6, 2023, FEMA announced its designation of 483 Community Disaster Resilience Zones. These zones will build disaster resilience across the nation by driving federal, public and private resources to the most at-risk and in-need jurisdictions.

A new study finds that how much of Earth’s surface energy is used to evaporate water is a crucial driver of local weather variations during summer months. The researchers identify two feedback regimes related to evaporation and cloudiness.

A commercial vessel deployed five autonomous profiling Argo floats Institution in early August during a southbound transit from Louisiana to Jamaica. The floats will add to the global Argo array and enhance key ocean measurements in a region critical for accurate hurricane forecasting.

Recent decades have shown enhanced low sea level pressure from North Carolina to Massachusetts, associated with a relative sea level rise. This pattern combines with wind stress in the summertime and the effect grows larger over time.

A new study finds that changes in heat transport by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is influencing the frequency of floods along the United States southeastern coast.

A new study accounting for the simultaneous effects of fires, water stress, and plant competition suggests that up to 40 percent of Amazon forests may begin to convert to savanna before mid-century under high greenhouse gas emission scenarios.

Scientists at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center — a division of the National Weather Service — have increased their prediction for the ongoing 2023 Atlantic hurricane season from a near-normal level of activity to an above-normal level of activity.

A new study captures a snapshot of two decades of global interior ocean measurements, and the study demonstrates that the ocean’s role as a carbon sink and its ability to store anthropogenic carbon may be weakening.