noaa
dr. dolittle | March 5, 2016 NOAA image of a possible new species of octopus discovered near Hawaii. Photo credit: AP, NOAA
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) think they have discovered a new species of octopus while exploring the ocean floor around Necker Island (near Hawaii). The octopus was found 4,290 meters deep. Interestingly, fins were absent from the pale octopus, which NOAA scientist Michael Vecchione noted was unusual for an octopus living at that depth. Moreover, its suckers were found to be in a single row on each of its arms, as opposed to two rows. These are…
gregladen | November 18, 2015NOAA has just followed JMA and NASA in reporting on October's average global surface temperature. The surface temperature is the combination of thermometer-at-head-height data and sea surface temperatures, averaged out for the planet. Several groups track this data, and though there is much overlap in the instruments used, each group has its own way of processing the data to eliminate errors and biases, and to adjust for missing information (such as large regions with little data).
NOAA points out that October had the greatest above-average departure from average for any month. Also, NOAA…
gregladen | January 16, 2015NOAA will announce today that 2014 was the warmest year during the instrumental record, which begins in 1880. The announcement, which addresses findings of both NOAA and NASA, will be made today at 11:00 Eastern. Below is the press release from NOAA.
I talked about this and other climate matters in a radio interview at Green Divas:
Michael Mann has made the following statements regarding this news:
2014 Was Earth’s Warmest Year On Record
Three major climate organizations (JMA, NASA, and NOAA) have now released their official estimates for the 2014 Global Mean Surface Temperature. Both JMA…
gregladen | October 16, 2014The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has released its official prediction of what this winter is going to be like.
And yes, it is in ALL CAPS!!! I've pasted it below, but first a summary of the relevant points.
According to NOAA
El Nino
There will be a weak El Nino, late Autumn or Winter.
Or, there could be a moderate EL Nino.
Or, there could just be this thing that might someday be an El Nino but doesn't quite do that for an indefinate period of time.
November, December, January Temps
Warmer along the West and Northwest, all the Northern State and New England, and the…
gregladen | June 7, 2014Just a quick item on the pause in global warming that is said to have happened over the last X number of years. I took NOAA's instrumental record since the late 19th century and calculated the average deviation for "surface" temperatures from a baseline for the entire period. Surface temperatures refer to the lower part of the atmosphere and sea surfaces. When you look at a graph of "global warming" expressed in temperatures, this is almost always what is meant (this leaves out a lot of things, including the poles, much of Africa, and deeper ocean waters). But it is a standard and a fairly…
gregladen | May 20, 2014A few days ago I noted that April 2014 was one of the warmest Aprils on record. This morning, NOAA has released its data showing that April was actually a bit warmer than I had suggested.
NOAA has already stated that "The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces was the fourth highest for March on record, at 0.71°C (1.28°F) above the 20th century average of 12.3°C (54.1°F)" and "The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January–March period (year-to-date) was 0.60°C (1.08°F) above the 20th century average of 12.3°C (54.1°F), the seventh…
carlyo | April 14, 2012Rockville High School in Rockville, MD was visited by Dr. April Croxton, Marine Biologist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Dr. Croxton is one of the AT&T Sponsored Nifty Fifty X 2 Speakers. WTOP's "Man About Town" Bob Madigan was on hand to broadcast Dr. Croxton's presentation and even catch some student comments about this inspiring event.
Listen to WTOP's coverage with Bob Madigan here.
The USA Science & Engineering Festival's AT&T Sponsored Nifty Fifty Program sends more than 100 top scientists and engineers to DC-area schools leading up to…
kcollins | May 30, 2011If there is one piece of advice that marine biologist and Nifty Fifty Speaker April Croxton would give young students aspiring to pursue a career in science it would be: Don't narrow down your career choice in science too early. "Science is so vast an area, encompassing so many disciplines, some of them often intersecting and crossing over to other areas that also may be appealing to you," says April, a fishery biologist at the National Marine Fisheries Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Milford, CT. "Take time to explore and study as many areas of…
illconsidered | December 15, 2010Okay, we really need a topic change around here and I have about 40,000 (or is it 40??) tabs open in Firefox waiting to spark a conversation. Some are months old news now, somewhat more than stale. That gives you all an indication of the gap between my intentions and my performance these days....I have an hour before my travels back to Czech Republic begin, and I will be out of contact for a couple of days, I think the time is now.
So, lets just do a bit of a topic dump and see what catches on.
India is building a wall along its border with Bangledesh. I wonder how people who consider the…
egrossman | July 26, 2010By Elizabeth Grossman
In mid-June most of the seafood shacks along the bayou roads between New Orleans and Grand Isle were closed. A seafood market that I stopped by on the western edge of New Orleans was virtually devoid of customers despite bins brimming with bright blue crab and tawny shrimp. Business was so slim that two women who should have been tending to customers were playing Yahtzee. "We've never done this on a workday before," they told me. Another woman unloading sacks of shrimp frowned at my notepad and said, "I blame the media. We've got plenty of shrimp and it's safe." She…
dblum | July 5, 2010A couple days ago I received this note:
"There was an article in the Huffington Post not long ago about an extreme worst case scenario with the oil spill - that a giant methane bubble bursts through the sea floor, ignites, causes a huge supersonic tsunami that would wipe out all of Florida, followed by a vaporization tsunami.
I've heard this described as "disaster porn", and certainly, the scenario smacks of it. But, there have been extreme natural disasters in the past, and not being a geologist, I can't help but feel some alarm at this, as I'm currently a resident of Tampa. I have…
dblum | June 15, 2010Recently, I wrote a cranky little post about NOAA's behavior regarding the Gulf of Mexico. The agency's approach seemed to me to be timid and deferential at a time when I wanted a strong voice and and steady sense of purpose.
What had set me off was the agency's reluctance to use the word "plume" in describing the underwater mists of oil drifting away from the BP disaster site. Why not, I asked, call a plume a plume?
To my surprise, I almost immediately got a call from NOAA. For some reason, people at the agency didn't agree with my analyses. I thought they were being wusses. They thought…
dblum | June 8, 2010 I was on the phone this afternoon with a friend at what I'll describe as a highly respected national-type newspaper, and we almost simultaneously broke into complaint about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
What set us off was NOAA's grudging admission of the day, that despite angry earlier denials, there were indeed swathes of oil-saturated water coiling for miles, under the surface of the Gulf, emanating away from the site of the BP pipe break.
As The New York Times noted: "the tests confirmed that some toxic compounds that would normally be expected to…
dblum | May 31, 2010 So, at a Sunday news briefing, British Petroleum's CEO, Tony Hayward, announced that there are no underwater plumes of oil resulting from the April accident at the company's Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
Why? Well, first BP's testing hasn't found any such evidence. And second, Hayward reminds us that, you know, oil floats. Or if we didn't get that: "Oil has a specific gravity that's about half that of water. It wants to get to the surface because of the difference in specific gravity."
Let's give the man this: there is definitely oil floating on the surface…
sciencewoman | March 9, 2009President Obama's picks for science advisor (John Holdren) and NOAA administrator (Jane Lubchenco) are being blocked from receiving confirmation because of the anonymous holds of one or more Senators. Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority has been following the story for at least a week and writes today that:
As I've already said - possibly to the point of inducing tedium - the scientific community needs to keep pressure on the Senate. There are so many other things going on in Washington right now that this issue is not going to get much more attention from the traditional media than it…
grrlscientist | March 10, 2008tags: white orca, white killer whale, Orcinus orca, zoology, cetaceans, NOAA
A rare white killer whale, Orcinus orca, better known as an Orca,
photographed by researchers off the coast of Alaska on 23 February.
Image: Holly Fearnbach (NMML, NMFS permit 782-1719) [wallpaper size].
Seattle researchers were working off the coast of Alaska when they saw something amazing; a 25-30 foot long male "killer whale", Orcinus orca, that is white instead of being black-and-white, the characteristic color scheme for this species. This white whale, which was identified as a male due to its very tall…