Environment: Discover the new NOAA.gov!

Based on your feedback, we re-engineered the site with the theme of "At Your Service." We've made big changes to help you more quickly and easily find the NOAA news, data and information you've come to expect. We've also made it easier to explore the breadth of NOAA's 9 focus areas. This is just the first phase of a long-term effort to unify NOAA's web properties with a more modern look and functionality.

Scientists from NCCOS and NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) have released new infographics that highlight key findings from social surveys conducted in American Samoa and Florida during the 2013–14 monitoring year.

The Caribbean is a beautiful part of the world, with inviting waters and soft sands… but unfortunately, it is not immune to marine debris. To address marine debris in the Caribbean region, the NOAA Marine Debris Program supports various removal and prevention efforts that work to combat it.

NCCOS’s Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research (CCEHBR) recently began its 26th year of volunteering in PalmettoPride’s Adopt-A-Highway program, an effort to fight litter and help beautify South Carolina. Over the past 25 years, the hard work of CCEHBR volunteers has produced 1,115 30-gallon bags of trash, weighing a grand total of 8.4 tons. 

The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for January 2016 was the highest for the month since record keeping began in 1880. Ocean surface temperatures were also highest for the month, while land surface temperatures were second highest on record.

Meet Derrick and Jessica Snowden, a married couple who work at NOAA's U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (U.S. IOOS^®). Derrick is chief of the U.S. IOOS Operations Division, Jessica is a physical scientist in the IOOS Regions, Budget, and Policy Division.

A new study shows that the ocean enterprise, the for-profit and not-for-profit firms that support ocean measurement, observation, and forecasting, accounts for billions of dollars of the U.S. economy annually and provides up to 30,000 jobs. Hurricane buoys, shown here, are just one of the many tools used to collect ocean observation data.

Noisy automated contours from lidar annoy you? Let's take a look at the problem.

Valentine’s Day is almost here and what better way to celebrate than by showing our ocean some love? This year, give your heart to the ocean by thinking about how you can help protect it from marine debris.

Many people might be inclined to write off the wide, dry plains stretching around the Hanford Nuclear Reservation as lost lands. After all, this area in eastern Washington was central to the top-secret Manhattan Project, where plutonium was produced for nuclear bombs used against Japan near the end of World War II. In addition, nuclear production continued at Hanford throughout the Cold War, ending in 1987.

NCCOS is pleased to welcome and host Knauss Marine Policy Fellow Dr. Trevor Meckley in 2016. Trevor has a PhD in Fisheries and Wildlife from Michigan State University and is sponsored by Michigan Sea Grant.

How strong is our strong El Niño? And what could El Niño have to do with the Denver Broncos? Blogger Emily Becker answers questions about ENSO events, current and past.

See how real-time tide station readings validate sea surface height measurements made from space.

NCCOS staff and scientists from CCEHBR in Charleston, SC recently attended the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference in Tampa, Florida. The conference drew over 2,000 scientists, policymakers, students, and other stakeholders.

Professor Greg Boyer, with the algal toxins laboratory at the Environmental Science and Forestry of the State University of New York (SUNY-ESF) continues to demonstrate a valuable capacity for the state’s monitoring of a suite of toxins produced by cyanobacteria blooms known to have human health implications.

Over the next several decades, cacao-growing regions may grow warmer and drier, but with planning and adaptation, farmers can keep producing our favorite treat.

The disruptions of tropical Pacific sea surface temperature and rainfall that occur during the climate pattern called "ENSO" trigger a cascade of global side effects. These maps show how El Niño and La Niña affect seasonal climate around the world.