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We all need tools. Tools for working at the office, tools for working in our homes and yards, even tools for dining and recreation. Various types of tools are used by scientists also in helping them do their jobs. Repeating circle with two telescopes drawn by Caroline HasslerOceanographers, meteorologists, marine biologists, sea-surveyors, climate modelers, and fisheries scientists all require specialized tools and equipment to help them do their jobs. These tools include, but are not limited to, microscopes, computers, measuring instruments, and specialized vehicles for observing and analyzing our environment. For NOAA, those vehicles can include survey and research ships, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft outfitted with specially designed sensors, submersibles that carry passengers and scientific gear through the water column to the bottom of the sea, robotic vehicles, satellites that view our planet with special cameras and remote sensing instruments, and even specially equipped automobiles for chasing tornadoes.

This section of NOAA History is devoted to stories concerned with the “tools” of the trade, the special instruments and vehicles that allow NOAA scientists and engineers to better monitor the environment, warn our citizens of impending danger, and help educate us all to the wonders of our world.

banner - ship history
picture of early ship
Ships
NOAA has a rich maritime heritage encompassing vessels that have sailed into all oceans of the world collecting data and specimens, mapping seafloor and water column, and observing the interactions between ocean and atmosphere.
survey and mapping technology
plane table work
Surveying and Mapping
Surveying and mapping in the Coast and Geodetic Survey encompassed seafloor, shoreline, mountain-tops and plains and more...

fisheries heritage
early radar
Weather Prediction & Detection
For centuries weather observing tools consisted of the human eye and the various human senses. Only within the last six centuries has the rudimentary technology of weather observation been developed.
fisheries research
fishhook
Fisheries Research
Join the National Marine Fisheries Service as it studies the fish and mammals of our seas, learns their secrets, and the best means to protect the our living marine resources….




Publication of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA Central Library.

Last Updated: July 6, 2007 1:42 PM

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