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Research Highlights
The first observatory designed to make long-term climate measurements of Arctic
clouds and aerosols has been established by
NOAA's Environmental Technology Laboratory (ETL) in collaboration with
the University of Wisconsin and the Canadian CANDAC program.
As part of the NOAA
Study of Environmental Arctic
Change (SEARCH) program, the observatory was deployed
to improve atmospheric and sea ice observations. These observations
will be combined with
historical data to better understand Arctic change.
Scientists and forecasters have long understood that the continental
United States looks to the Pacific Ocean for its rainfall. Part of a
complex global cycle, water evaporated from the Pacific Ocean travels in
clouds to produce rain and snow over land. To better explain and
predict droughts and floods, scientists are examining the processes which
govern these flows.
Thousands of miles from any human habitation, fishing nets
lost or abandoned foul huge swaths of the Pacific Ocean.
These "ghostnets" continue to fish, untended, entangling
and killing fish stocks, marine mammals and birds.
While this problem has been known to fisheries managers and fishermen alike,
the sheer mass of ghostnets
has come as an unpleasant surprise to NOAA scientists.
NOAA researchers are developing techniques to identify areas in the open
ocean where debris is concentrated and can be cost effectively retrieved.
Profilers deployed in the North East observed the passage of the January
21 blizzard which brought heavy snows to the region. High resolution
imagery from wind profilers is used to understand the dynamics of such
storms.
Networks of profilers are used to examine the structure
and dynamics of the boundary layer, the lowest part of the atmosphere that
is in contact with the surface of the earth. Gaining a better understanding
of the boundary layer is important to improving weather prediction,
air quality management and air traffic safety.
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