This June, AOML hosted students from the Frost Science Upward Bound Math and Science program. This program provides high school students with access to mentors and technology, interaction with scientists, as well the IMPACT (Integrated Marine Program and College Training) Summer Program, in which they delve specifically into marine science.
Coral researchers at AOML unveiled a new state of the art experimental laboratory this spring at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel campus. The new “Experimental Reef Laboratory” will allow NOAA scientists and colleagues to study the molecular mechanisms of coral resiliency. Modeling studies indicate that thermal stress and ocean acidification will worsen in the coming decades. Scientists designed the Experimental Reef Laboratory to study the combined effect of these two threats, and determine if some corals are able to persist in a changing environment.
AOML employees commemorated Gladys Medina’s retirement after 45 years of federal service as executive assistant to the AOML director.
Congratulations to AOML’s research oceanographer Sang-Ki Lee for winning the scientific category at the 52nd Annual Federal Employee of the Year Award Program on May 12th.
On May 12th, 2017, AOML oceanographic and meteorological scientists participated in the final leg of NOAA’s Hurricane Awareness Tour in Miami at the Opa-Locka Executive Airport.
AOML scientists and colleagues from the University of Miami took part in a 17-day research cruise aboard R/V Endeavor in support of the NOAA-funded Western Boundary Time Series project.
Scientists found that microbes and their genetic material from land-based sources of pollution could be found in reef water and in tissues of corals. This could affect the genomics of the native microbial communities found in coral reefs, which can impact how corals thrive and survive. These new insights highlight an additional potential threat to corals from land-based sources of pollution in southeast Florida, where corals are already under existential threat from warming oceans and resulting coral bleaching, disease and mortality.
The California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) cruise sampling was completed on April 21st aboard NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) transports the upper warm water northward and the deep cold water southward in the Atlantic, and is a key component of the global energy balance. In many of the climate models that participate the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), the amplitudes of the AMOC agree very well with or are even larger than the observed value of about 18 Sv at 26.5N; but they still show cold upper ocean temperature biases in the North Atlantic.
One of the most challenging questions in global climate change studies today is how quickly, or if, heat that accumulates within the Earth system penetrates into the deep ocean. Scientists with the University of Miami (UM), AOML, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) recently tackled this question by using a combination of present-day satellite and in situ observing systems to study the distribution of heat in the oceans.
