Hurricane, Climate, Coastal and Ocean Research.
About Our Lab
The research portfolio of NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) encompasses ocean, coastal, and atmospheric studies to deliver NOAA’s future by transferring research results into operations and applications. We focus on improving the prediction of hurricanes, learning about the ocean’s role in climate and extreme weather events, understanding the global impacts of ocean acidification and pollution on coastal ecosystems, and providing insights to help resource managers. AOML leads many international efforts to maintain, optimize, and interpret global observations from ships, satellites, aircraft, drifting buoys, moored instruments, and floats. These observations are the foundation of our research. Read more About Us.
Research Highlights
Read our News Stories from the Field, Research Publications, and Events.
Our Research Makes an Impact
Project: Monitoring the Ocean Improves Weather Forecasts
AOML plays a key role in collecting and maintaining sustained ocean observations that monitor the temperature and salinity of ocean features using drifters, Argo floats, XBTs, moorings, and other platforms.
Impact: Adding Ocean Data from Directly Beneath a Storm Leads to More Accurate Hurricane Forecasts
Unmanned Ocean Glider data improve our understanding of the current ocean state and are used to initialize hurricane models. Data from gliders passing under Hurricane Gonzalo improved the intensity forecast by one category on the Saffir Simpson Scale.
Project: Monitoring Commercially Important Sportfish Populations
AOML developed a sportfish model that the US Army Corps of Engineers adopted to evaluate the impacts of Everglades Restoration on south Florida’s economically and ecologically important sportfish populations.
Impact: Empowers Managers to Evaluate Different Scenarios and Plan for the Future
The majority of sportfish in south Florida are dependent upon healthy estuaries with natural freshwater runoff. The model shows how sea trout would respond to different management scenarios, giving managers actionable information.
Project: HWRF's High Resolution Moving Nest Module
AOML developed a high resolution moving nest in NOAA's regional hurricane model known as HWRF, increasing resolution over the storm environment. We transition the HWRF model into operations in joint partnership with NOAA's Environmental Modeling Center.
Impact: Improved Forecast Accuracy Better Informs Coastal Communities
The HWRF model has improved intensity forecasts by 10- 5 kts in the critical decision making period of 48-72 hours before landfall. This allows people to make informed decisions to prepare their families, homes, and communities.
Featured Publication
Subsurface Automated Samplers (SAS) for Ocean Acidification Research
ENOCHS, I.C., N. FORMEL, L. SHEA, L. CHOMIAK, A. Piggot, A. KIRKLAND, and D. MANZELLO. Subsurface automated samplers (SAS) for ocean acidification research. Bulletin of Marine Science, 96(4):735-752 (https://doi.org/10.5343/bms.2020.0018) (2020).
Abstract: Ocean acidification (OA) is the process whereby anthropogenic carbon dioxide is absorbed into seawater, resulting in altered carbonate chemistry and a decline in pH. OA will negatively impact numerous marine organisms, altering the structure and function of entire ecosystems. The progression of OA, while faster than has occurred in recent geological history, has been subtle and detection may be complicated by high variability in shallow-water environments. Nevertheless, comprehensive monitoring and characterization is important given the scale and severity of the problem. Presently, technologies used to measure OA in the field are costly and limited by their detection of only one carbonate chemistry parameter, such as pH. Discrete water samples, by contrast, offer a means of measuring multiple components of the carbonate system, including parameters of particular explanatory value (e.g., total alkalinity, dissolved inorganic carbon), for which field-based sensors do not presently exist…
AOML & GFDL’s Grassroots Collaboration
New Opportunities in a Virtual Environment
“This is a great starting point; it gave people a list of more than 10 topics with researchers at both labs working on similar problems. We now know who is a person we can contact, and that they are interested in collaborating because they gave a talk at the workshop.”
-Renellys Perez, Organizer and Participant
Frequently Asked Questions about Hurricanes
Why Don't Nuclear Weapons Destroy Hurricanes?
Radioactive fallout from such an operation would far outweigh the benefits and may not alter the storm. Additionally, the amount of energy that a storm produces far outweighs the energy produced by one nuclear weapon.
How Much Energy is Released from a Hurricane?
The energy released from a hurricane can be explained in two ways: the total amount of energy released by the condensation of water droplets (latent heat), or the amount of kinetic energy generated to maintain the strong, swirling winds of a hurricane. The vast majority of the latent heat released is used to drive the convection of a storm, but the total energy released from condensation is 200 times the world-wide electrical generating capacity, or 6.0 x 1014 watts per day. If you measure the total kinetic energy instead, it comes out to about 1.5 x 1012 watts per day, or ½ of the world-wide electrical generating capacity. It would seem that although wind energy seems the most obvious energetic process, it is actually the latent release of heat that feeds a hurricane’s momentum.
What Causes Tropical Cyclones?
In addition to hurricane-favorable conditions such as temperature and humidity, many repeating atmospheric phenomenon contribute to causing and intensifying tropical cyclones. For example, African Easterly Waves are winds in the lower troposphere (ocean surface to 3 miles above) that travel from Africa at speeds of about 3mph westward as a result of the African Easterly Jet. These winds are seen from April until November. About 85% of intense hurricanes and about 60% of smaller storms have their origin in African Easterly waves.
The Saharan Air Layer is another significant seeding phenomenon for tropical storms. It is a mass of dry, mineral-rich, dusty air that forms over the Sahara from late spring to early fall and moves over the tropical North Atlantic every 3-5 days at speeds of 22-55mph (10-25 meters per second). The air mass is 1-2 miles deep, exists in the lower troposphere, and can be as wide as the continental US. These air masses have significant moderating impacts on tropical cyclone intensity and formation because the dry, intense air can both deprive the storm of moisture and interfere with its convection by increasing the wind shear.
Many tropical cyclones form due to these larger scale atmospheric factors. Hurricanes that form fairly close in our basin are called Cape Verde hurricanes, named for the location where they are formed. Cape Verde origin hurricanes can be up to five per year, with an average of around two.
Why are Tropical Cyclones Always Worse on the Right Side?
If a hurricane is moving to the west, the right side would be to the north of the storm, if it is heading north, then the right side would be to the east of the storm. The movement of a hurricane can be broken into two parts- the spiral movement and its forward movement. If the hurricane is moving forward, the side of the spiral with winds parallel and facing forward in the direction of movement will go faster, because you are adding two velocities together. The side of the spiral parallel to the movement, but going in the opposite direction will be slower, because you must subtract the velocity moving away (backwards) from the forward velocity.
For example, a hurricane with 90mph winds moving at 10mph would have a 100mph wind speed on the right (forward-moving) side and 80 mph on the side with the backward motion.
How are Hurricanes Named?
During the 19th century, hurricane names were inspired by everything from saints to wives to unpopular politicians. In 1978, it was agreed that the National Hurricane Center would use alternating men and women’s names following the practice adopted by Australia’s bureau of Meteorology three years earlier in 1975.
Today, a list of potential names is published by the United Nations World Meteorological Organization for the Atlantic basin. These names extend into 2023, and the list repeats every seventh year. If a particularly damaging storm occurs, the name of that storm is retired. Storms retired in 2017 include Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Nate. If there are more storms than names on the list in a given season, the National Hurricane Center will name them using the Greek alphabet. Lastly, if a storm happens to move across basins, it keeps the original name. The only time it is renamed if it dissipates to a tropical disturbance and reforms.