NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory is pleased to announce Jasmin John as AOML’s Ocean Chemistry and Ecosystems Division new deputy director.
Kappel, E.S., S.K. Juniper, S. Seeyave, E. Smith, and M. Visbeck, eds. 2021. Frontiers in Ocean Observing: Documenting Ecosystems, Understanding Environmental Changes, Forecasting Hazards. A Supplement to Oceanography 34(4), 102 pp., https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2021.supplement.02.
Articles in this inaugural Frontiers in Ocean Observing supplement to Oceanography describe new technologies and reveal some exciting results that advance our understanding of the world ocean and its resources and support its sustainable use and management. Topics covered align with the priorities of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030). Five articles in this Supplement were co-authored by AOML scientists and science support personnel: Climate-Relevant Ocean Transport Measurements in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, Monitoring Boundary Currents Using Ocean Observing Infrastructure, An Integrated Observing Effort for Sargassum Monitoring and Warning in the Caribbean Sea, Tropical Atlantic, and Gulf of America, Uncrewed Ocean Gliders and Saildrones Support Hurricane Forecasting and Research, and The Technological, Scientific, and Sociological Revolution of Global Subsurface Ocean Observing.
On December 19th, after nearly six weeks at sea, scientists aboard the NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown returned to land and docked in Praia, Cape Verde, completing the PIRATA (Prediction and Research Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic) Northeast Extension (PNE) cruise.
MIAMI—A new study found that seafloor sediments have the potential to transmit a deadly pathogen to local corals and hypothesizes that sediments have played a role in the persistence of a devastating coral disease outbreak throughout Florida and the Caribbean.
Scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML),the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, and the Northern Gulf Institute at Mississippi State University have engineered a new instrument that will provide valuable information about the biodiversity of aquatic ecosystems. A recently published paper in Hardware X describes the design and creation of a low-cost, open-source sub-surface automated environmental DNA (eDNA) sampler (SASe), for sampling eDNA in the water column. The SASe represents a milestone for AOML as one of the first pieces of technology to go through a rigorous transition process from the desks of scientists in the laboratory, through organizational approval channels, to the wider scientific community with full accessibility to the public.
The amount of wind shear, i.e., the change of the wind with height, is one of the most commonly used predictors of tropical cyclone intensity change, with large amounts of wind shear generally being unfavorable for intensification. Regardless of the direction of the wind shear, tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic basin usually have warm, moist air from the environment near the sea surface on their east side (solid red arrows in the images) and cool, dry air from the environment on their west side (solid blue arrows in images).
Chakravorty, S., Perez, R. C., Gnanaseelan, C., & Anderson, B. T. (2021). Revisiting the recharge and discharge processes for different flavors of El Niño. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 126(11), e2020JC017075.
Plain Language Summary: The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the largest source of year-to-year climate variability. ENSO has a pronounced influence on regional and global circulation and precipitation patterns and thus has considerable worldwide socio-economical impacts. El Niño, the warm phase of ENSO, exhibits modulation in the longitudinal location of its maximum warming, creating what is referred to as ENSO diversity. For conventional El Niño events, maximum surface warming is located in the eastern equatorial Pacific, for which subsurface warming along the tropical Pacific has proven to serve as a predictor several months in advance. Previous studies disagree on whether this subsurface warming is similarly essential for El Niño events that have peak surface warming in the central Pacific. The authors developed an improved method for identifying these two types of El Niño in an ocean reanalysis product. Using this improved method, they found no clear evidence of a subsurface warming precursor for the central Pacific El Niño events along the equator. This lack of a tropical subsurface precursor limits our ability to predict these types of El Niño events.
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Enochs, I. C., Formel, N., Manzello, D., Morris, J., Mayfield, A. B., Boyd, A., … & Hendee, J. (2020). Coral persistence despite extreme periodic pH fluctuations at a volcanically acidified Caribbean reef. Coral Reefs, 39(3), 523-528.
Abstract: Naturally acidified environments, such as those caused by volcanic CO2 venting, reveal how complex coral reef ecosystems may respond to future ocean acidification conditions. Few of these sites have been described worldwide, and only a single such site is known from the Caribbean. Herein, we have characterized an area of volcanic acidification at Mayreau Island, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Despite localized CO2 enrichment and gas venting, the surrounding area has high hard and soft coral cover, as well as extensive carbonate frameworks. Twice daily extremes in acidification, in some cases leading to undersaturation of aragonite, are correlated with tidal fluctuations and are likely related to water flow. Corals persisting despite this periodic acidification can provide insights into mechanisms of resilience and the importance of natural pH variability on coral reefs.
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The active 2021 Atlantic hurricane season ended on November 30, producing 21 named tropical storms (39‑73 mph winds), seven hurricanes (74 mph winds and above), and four major hurricanes (111 mph winds and above). The year will be remembered as the third-most active on record, as well as the third costliest, causing more than $80 billion in damage.
Hurricane scientists at AOML sampled multiple storms this summer as the Atlantic entered its peak period for hurricane formation. From Elsa to Sam, the observations they gathered supported NOAA’s mission of preparing the public for severe weather by providing critical data for accurate, up-to-date forecasts.
