Organization
NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental (PMEL) laboratory is a federal research laboratory, part of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research line office within NOAA. NOAA is a part of the Department of Commerce.
PMEL is made up of the following divisions:
Office of the Director (OD)
The Office of the Director at PMEL is made up of the Director, Deputy Director, Associate Director for Operations, Associate Director for Information Technology, and the Outreach Coordinator. Part of the foundational services theme (also including Admin and CNSD below), the OD works with OAR, NOAA, Department of Commerce, and Congressional levels to provide a supportive infrastructure for PMEL scientists.
Administrative & Technical Services Division (Admin)
The Admin division manages a wide array of business activities supporting PMEL scientists and engineers including budget management, purchasing, travel, publications, graphics, property management, safety and much more.
Computing and Networking Services Division (CNSD)
The CNSD group works tirelessly to provide IT support to the over 200 PMEL employees on a daily basis. They are in charge of implementing IT security policies, providing central management of IT devices, developing and maintaining the infrastructure to ingest data from field instruments, providing multimedia support and much more.
Ocean Environment Research Division (OERD)
OERD conducts NOAA relevant research on a variety of topics with the primary goals of: gathering and sharing observational data; analyzing data to build understanding of atmospheric and oceanic processes; creating predictive models of ecosystems, physical oceanography, and tsunamis; and keeping stakeholders informed of key scientific results. Programs in OERD are:
- NOAA Center for Tsunami Research
- Arctic Climate Dynamics
- Ecosystem & Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations
- Earth-Ocean Interactions
- Acoustics
Ocean Climate Research Division (OCRD)
PMEL's Ocean Climate Research Division makes in situ observations of the physical and chemical variability of the ocean and marine atmosphere. Observations are made in the world's major ocean basins. Our research is centered on analyzing and sharing the data, and improving our understanding of weather and climate variability. Programs in OCRD are:
- Atmospheric Chemistry
- Large Scale Ocean Physics
- Ocean Carbon
- Ocean Climate Stations
- Ocean Tracer
- Pacific Western Boundary Currents
- Science Data Integration
- Tropical Moored Buoy Array
- Thermal Modeling & Analysis Project
Engineering Development Division (EDD)
Engineering innovations at PMEL are multidisciplinary in nature and are driven by the formation of teams that integrate research and engineering to solve difficult ocean and atmospheric observing challenges. PMEL Engineering's objective is twofold: 1) to support PMEL field systems with engineering services, and 2) to foster technological innovation by pushing the limits of ocean and atmospheric observing platforms and sensors that advance NOAA research and operations.