Author: AOML Communications

First page of 'Molecular Mechanisms of Coral Persistence within Highly Urbanized Locations in the Port of Miami, Florida publication.

Molecular Mechanisms of Coral Persistence Within Highly Urbanized Locations in the Port of Miami, Florida

Rubin, E. T., Enochs, I. C., Foord, C., Mayfield, A. B., Kolodziej, G., Basden, I., & Manzello, D. P. (2021). Molecular mechanisms of coral persistence within highly urbanized locations in the Port of Miami, Florida. Frontiers in Marine Science, 936.

Abstract: Healthy coral communities can be found on artificial structures (concrete walls and riprap) within the Port of Miami (PoM), Florida. These communities feature an unusually high abundance of brain corals, which have almost entirely vanished from nearby offshore reefs. These corals appear to be thriving in very low-quality waters influenced by dense ship and boat traffic, dredging, and numerous residential and industrial developments. The PoM basin is part of Biscayne Bay, an estuarine environment that experiences frequent freshwater input, high nutrient loading, hypoxia, and acidification. To investigate if there is a molecular basis behind the ability of these corals to persist within these highly “urbanized” waters, we compared whole transcriptome expression profiles from 25 PoM Pseudodiploria strigosa colonies against six conspecifics from a nearby offshore reef…

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The Gulfstream-IV Hurricane Hunter science crew at the Amílcar Cabral International Airport on Sal Island in the eastern Atlantic. Photo credit: NOAA.

First Cabo Verde Missions Explore Earliest Roots of Atlantic Hurricanes

Scientists at AOML deployed to the Cabo Verde islands in August to explore how tropical waves that move off the coast of West African develop into tropical storms and hurricanes. These first-ever missions thousands of miles across the Atlantic mark the farthest distance traveled by NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters to help forecast models better predict the future track and intensity of developing storms.

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Coastal Downwelling Study Selected as a Featured Paper

A recent study authored by five NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) scientists (Lew Gramer, Jun Zhang, Ghassan Alaka, Andrew Hazelton, and Sundararamen Gopalakrishnan) was recently selected out of a variety of publications as a featured paper for EOS Science News by the American Geophysical Union. 

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First page of the State of the Climate Report 2021

State of the Climate in 2021

Blunden, J. and T. Boyer, Eds., 2022: “State of the Climate in 2021”. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 1038), Si–S465, https://doi.org/10.1175/2022BAMSStateoftheClimate.1

In 2021, the dominant greenhouse gases released into Earth’s atmosphere continued to increase. The annual global average carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration was 414.7 ± 0.1 ppm, an increase of 2.6 ± 0.1 ppm over 2020, the fifth-highest growth rate since the start of the instrumental record in 1958. This brings the concentration of CO2 to, once again, the highest in the modern record and ice core records dating back 800,000 years. The growth rate for methane (CH4) was the highest on record and the third highest for nitrous oxide (N2O), contributing to new record high atmospheric concentration levels for both gases….

Chapter 3 “Global Oceans” was co-edited by Rick Lumpkin, the Director of AOML’s Physical Oceanography Division, and Greg Johnson (NOAA). AOML authors are Francis Bringas, Shenfu Dong, Gustavo Goni, Rick Lumpkin, Renellys Perez, Claudia Schmid, Denis Volkov, and Rik Wanninkhof. Chapter 4 “Tropics” was edited by Howard Diamond (NOAA) and Carl Schreck (NC State), with AOML authors Stanley Goldenberg, Gustavo Goni, and Francis Bringas contributing to the chapter.

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Ice Worm Publication Selected as a Spotlight Paper

A recent study co-authored by Jean Lim, University of Miami CIMAS scientist working with Kelly Goodwin and Luke Thompson at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory, has been selected out of a wide array of publications as a spotlight paper in the latest issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The focus of this special feature […]

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Thirty years of progress in hurricane forecasting since Hurricane Andrew

Hurricane Andrew made landfall on August 24, 1992, near Homestead, Florida, becoming one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in U.S. history. It had an extremely low central pressure of 922 millibars and maximum sustained wind speeds estimated at 165 miles per hour. The storm rapidly intensified less than 36 hours before landfall, leaving most residents less than a day to secure their homes and heed evacuation orders.

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