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Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research
1315 East-West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301-713-2458

NOAA Strategic Goal: Crosscutting

The research of the Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) is directed towards the needs of NOAA and other Federal and state agencies with related air quality and climate missions. The focus is on the transport, dispersion, turbulent exchange of materials between surfaces and the atmosphere, and wet and dry deposition of trace gases and particles in the air, and how these substances affect air quality and climate change. ARL conducts laboratory, field and theoretical studies, and develops instruments and air quality models. The Laboratory investigates turbulence and diffusion in the atmosphere, urban-to-regional-to-global transport and fate of pollutants, meteorology of air pollution, air-surface exchange processes, including surface heat and moisture levels and the deposition of pollutants, influences of dust and other particles and gases on climate change, and the effects of climate change on air quality. The Laboratory is the official Federal source of information on the atmospheric transport and fate of pollutants. The information is used to guide the development of national air quality policies and responses to emergencies affecting air quality, such as volcanic eruptions, and large scale fires. For additional information on ARL, please visit: http://www.arl.noaa.gov

NOAA’s Living Marine Resources Cooperative Science Center is led by the University of Maryland - Eastern Shore, with its partners, Delaware State University, Hampton University, Savannah State University, the University of Maryland Marine Biotechnology Institute’s Center of Marine Biotechnology and the University of Miami Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences have established a. This Center is one of four cooperative science centers that are part of NOAA’s Educational Partnership Program with Minority Serving Institutions. The goals of the Center are; enhance the academic program capacities of the Center’s collaborating Minority Serving Institutions, establish research programs in the marine sciences, and generate a pool of scholars entering the marine sciences. For more information, visit: http://www.umes.edu/osp/marine/

NOAA Strategic Goal: Climate Variability and Change

Satellite radar altimeters, which measure sea level along the satellite track with an accuracy of 5 cm, have become indispensable for NOAA's ocean research and operation. Applications range from global sea level rise to forecasts of El Nino and hurricane intensification. NOAA's Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry in Silver Spring received funding from the Climate Observations and Services Program to support activities such as satellite orbit determination, altimeter calibration, graduate student research, and mapping of the deep ocean floor.

NOAA delivers national and global weather, water, and climate guidance, forecasts, warnings, and analyses. The Climate Prediction Center in the National Weather Service’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction provides operational climate outlooks from two weeks to 13 months out. The Center used Climate Observations and Services funding to develop techniques for the utilization of climate forecast ensembles to provide national climate hazards outlooks. Improved specificity and skill of the U.S. Hazards Assessment provided the emergency managers and others warning of weather and climate related threats 3 to 14 days in advance.

The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project was established in 1982 as part of the World Climate Research Program to collect and analyze satellite measurements related to clouds. The NOAA Climate Observations and Services Program has helped fund the Project to support associated data processing and archival activities. The Sector Processing Center, located in Suitland, collects raw satellite data from NOAA's polar orbiter satellites and delivers a condensed data set to NASA's Global Processing Center. The receipt and inventory of geostationary data sets from four separate international sector processing centers has been enhanced with improved quality control functionality.

The Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) develops and enhances numerical forecast systems to support the National Center for Environmental Prediction and National Weather Service missions. With funding from the Climate Observations and Services Program, EMC was able to enhance the numerical models for the extended-range and seasonal predictions by using global, coupled ocean-atmospheric models in place of the current coupled modeling system restricted to the Pacific ocean basin. With Climate Observations and Services funding, EMC was also able to develop a global ocean data assimilation system and make it operational on its central computing facility, develop model bias correction techniques for the ocean data assimilation system, and improve techniques for coupling the oceanic modeling system with the atmospheric forecast models.

To carry out NOAA’s mission to provide climate forecasts and products, the Climate Program Office supports research projects across the nation conducted by investigators outside the federal government, within the federal government, and in NOAA Cooperative Institutes. This research is accomplished through the strong support of the academic and private sectors, as well as NOAA and other federal laboratories. The research contributes to improved predictions and assessments of the effects of climate variability over a range of time scales from season to season, year to year, and over the course of a decade and beyond. The Office of Global Program headquarters are in Silver Spring. Grants Recipients: University of Maryland, Center for Research on the Changing Earth Systems, Institute of Global Environmental and Society, Johns Hopkins University

NOAA Strategic Goal: Weather and Air Quality

THORPEX is an international research program to accelerate improvements in the accuracy of 1 to 14 day weather forecasts. Such projects encompassed improving weather model errors, development of ensemble global numerical weather models, and THORPEX mission planning. Through grants, NOAA provides funding to the Science Applications International Corporation (Mclean, Virginia), Colorado State University (Boulder, Colorado), University of Wisconsin (Madison, Wisconsin), University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland), and the Naval Research Laboratory (Monterey, CA).

NOAA Strategic Goal: Ecosystems

Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) scientists are involved in two studies in Maryland. GLERL scientists collaborate with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental and Estuarine Studies in Chesapeake Bay Land Margins Ecosystem Research: Trophic Interactions in Estuarine Research. This project investigates mechanisms affecting secondary production of the Bay’s estuarine ecosystems. GLERL scientists are also collaborators in the Complexity and Stressors in Estuarine Systems (COASTES), a multidisciplinary program designed to improve the understanding of the effects of multiple stressors in coastal systems and the role that the complexity of natural systems plays in influencing responses to anthropogenic stress, which is stress resulting from the influence of human beings. COASTES focuses on the Patuxent River as a model ecosystem. The Academy of Natural Sciences Estuarine Research Center is the lead institution for COASTES.

NOAA’s National Sea Grant College Program is a federal-university partnership that integrates research, education, and outreach (extension and communications). Sea Grant forms a network of 32 programs in all U.S. coastal and Great Lakes states, Puerto Rico and Guam. Maryland Sea Grant supports a statewide program of research, education, and extension services that works to promote the wise use of marine resources, with a strong ethic of stewardship. Current research targets coastal ecosystem health and economic leadership, including toxic contaminants, environmental management, the balance between population growth and the productivity of the Chesapeake Bay, oyster disease, and invasive species. Maryland Sea Grant, through active communications and extension efforts, informs industry, policy makers and the public on issues related to aquaculture, oyster disease, commercial and recreational fishing, natural resources conservation and biodiversity, coastal water quality, seafood processing, and nutrition. The Program produces a wide range of print and nonprint materials, including award-winning videos and two newsletters, Chesapeake Quarterly and Maryland Aquafarmer, in addition to web-based information and educational activities. For more information see http://www.mdsg.umd.edu.

NOAA's Undersea Research Program (NURP) is a unique national service that provides undersea scientists with tools and expertise that they need to work in the undersea environment, from the shoreline to the deep sea. Each year, the program supports 200 or more undersea research projects related to NOAA's mission as steward of oceanic resources and environments, including research to support NOAA's management responsibilities in fisheries (stock assessment validation, understanding essential fish habitat), corals, and other coastal resources. NURP is comprised of a network of six regional centers and a national technology institute. NOAA's Undersea Research Center for the Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB), one of the six NURP regional centers, supports undersea research along the mid-Atlantic states, from south of Long Island to Virginia, including Chesapeake Bay. The MAB Center is administered by Rutgers University in New Jersey, and Stony Brook University in New York. The MAB Center provides advanced undersea research platforms such as a REMUS Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and LEO-15, the Long-term Ecosystem Observatory located at 15 meter depth offshore of New Jersey. LEO-15 is able to collect data on various ocean parameters over long time periods, which may be used to distinguish between changes in the marine environment induced by natural versus anthropogenic events. LEO-15 serves as the core element of a shelf-wide ocean observation network that will increase understanding of episodic events such as storms, upwelling and hypoxia, that are poorly studied by conventional methods. For more information see http://www.nurp.noaa.gov/midatlan.html.

NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration (OE), headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, supports activities that search and investigate the oceans for the purpose of discovery. OE missions fit into four areas: (1) mapping the physical, biological, chemical and archeological aspects of the ocean; (2) understanding ocean dynamics at new levels to describe the complex interactions of the living ocean; (3) developing new sensors and systems for ocean exploration, and; (4) reaching out to the public to communicate the benefits to current of future generations of unlocking the secrets of the ocean. OE dedicates 10 percent of its annual budget to outreach and education activities. In 2005, OE provided funding to the Maryland based National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

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Updated June 8, 2006