Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences

The Lamont community maintains a large research effort focused toward understanding the earth's potential for abrupt climate change, its causes, and its effects on humans. Abrupt climate change can include global warming as well as extreme cooling, drought or precipitation events. Paleoclimate research at Lamont focuses on how and why abrupt climate change events occurred in the recent past, sequencing the events leading up to abrupt changes. A joint observational and modeling approach continues to be a hallmark of abrupt climate change research at Lamont.

Dramatic changes in early human evolution occurred in East and South Africa during the last ca. 5 Ma. These evolutionary changes include the gradual emergence of larger and bigger brained species, including the first appearance of our genus, Homo and the development of stone tools near ca. 2.6 Ma. Analysis of the fossil record from East and South Africa suggests that African fauna evolved in series of "pulses", centered near ca. 2.8 Ma, 1.8 Ma, and 1.0 Ma. Paleoclimate evidence from Africa and its adjacent oceans documents significant shifts in African climate towards progressively drier conditions. This "drying" of subtropical Africa occurred as a series of steps, also centered near ca. 2.8 Ma, 1.8 Ma, and 1.0 Ma. These fossil and paleoclimate results lend new support to environmental hypotheses of African faunal evolution, which state that critical junctures in African faunal evolution were mediated by ecological shifts forced by changes in African paleoclimate. As a result of ongoing efforts at this institution and at a number of research groups around the world, we are making progress on the question of how the evolution of hominids and other African vertebrates may have been shaped by past changes in African climate. This web site presents some of the current research topics being addressed at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

This Web site provides information on monitoring of aquatic resources in the US, primarily focused on design and analysis of probability based surveys. Links are provided to other aquatic resources monitoring information available on the internet. Hosted by the Monitoring Design and Analysis Team, USEPA ORD, National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, Western Ecology Division, Corvallis, OR.

Arctic climate impact assessment reports from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP). The reports cover the impacts of global warming and climate change on the arctic climate system, physical and biological systems, and human activities including health care, fishing, agriculture, forestry, wildlife, and other conservation issues.

AMAP is an international organization established in 1991 to implement components of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS). Now a programme group of the Arctic Council, AMAP's current objective is "providing reliable and sufficient information on the status of, and threats to, the Arctic environment, and providing scientific advice on actions to be taken in order to support Arctic governments in their efforts to take remedial and preventive actions relating to contaminants".

The Arctic Research Office (ARO) serves as a focal point for NOAA's research activities in the Arctic, Bering Sea, North Pacific and North Atlantic regions. The office manages the Arctic Research Initiative and other funds allocated to it, supporting both internal NOAA and extramural research. It represents NOAA on the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee, leads U.S. involvement in the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, and provides a point of contact between NOAA and the Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research and the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The Arctic Research Office is a component of NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.

The NOAA Arctic Science Laboratory (ASL) integrates NOAA's high latitude science capabilities to form a virtual organization focused on critical science issues in the Arctic. Participants throughout NOAA's line offices and programs to form this virtual laboratory, including NOAA research scientists, facilities, and unique capabilities.

This Arctic Theme Page provides access to widely distributed Arctic data and information for scientists, students, teachers, academia, managers, decision makers and the general public. Visit NOAA's Arctic Science Laboratory and Arctic Research Office.

Arlindo is an acronym for Arus Lintas Indonesia, meaning 'Indonesian throughflow' in Bahasa Indonesia. The Arlindo program is a joint oceanographic research endeavor of Indonesia and the United States, designed to study the circulation and mixing of waters within the Indonesian seas. Arlindo Goal: to resolve the circulation and water mass stratification within the Indonesian Seas in order to formulate a thorough description of the source, spreading patterns, inter-ocean transport and dominant mixing processes within the Indonesian Seas. Such products are used for the development of regional and global ocean circulation models; large scale coupled ocean/atmosphere models sufficient for prediction of climate and global change; understanding of the environmental conditions within the Indonesian Seas and improved understanding of the factors that affect primary productivity within Indonesian waters.

The Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) is one of the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) Facilities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA/AOML is a part of the US Department of Commerce (DOC) and is located in Miami, Florida. AOML's mission is to conduct basic and applied research in oceanography, tropical meteorology, atmospheric and oceanic chemistry, and acoustics. The research seeks to understand the physical characteristics and processes of the ocean and the atmosphere, both separately and as a coupled system.

The Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center is a multi-college unit at UC Berkeley, with the goal to broaden the atmospheric sciences beyond its traditional boundaries to embrace the biogeochemical frontier and the human dimension. The Center facilitates communication and integration across these traditional boundaries. In doing so, we aim to define a new paradigm for investigating changes in the atmosphere by integrating the microscopic mechanisms of chemical, physical, and biological processes with large-scale ecological and geological interactions between the geosphere, biosphere, and oceans, and how these interactions alter atmospheric composition.

BBSR has a long history of oceanographic innovation. 1954 saw the implementation of the world's first significant deep-ocean time series, Hydrostation "S", from which data are still being collected. The longevity and success of the program eventually led to BBSR linking with the U.S. Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) program to start the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS), another long-term time-series study examining biogeochemical cycles in the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda. The potential for acquiring more diverse and detailed time-series data was a key motivator in allowing BBSR to establish the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study. The BATS team is involved in making monthly measurements of important hydrographic, biological and chemical parameters throughout the water column at sites within the Sargasso Sea. Collaborative research efforts in the Sargasso Sea between BATS and other institutions include the Oceanic Flux Program (OFP), a continuing time-series study of sediment transport measurements into the deep sea (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), and the Bermuda Testbed Mooring site, where the latest high-technology moored platform is combined with hydrographic and bio-optical sensors (USC, UCSB, MBARI, LDEO).

Bigelow Laboratory's research progresses on multiple fronts: from microscopic to global in scale, and local to international in scope. Our investigators believe that a shared spirit of exploration is at the core of the scientific endeavor. We host scientists from all over the world and travel around the globe -- from the Gulf of Maine to Earth's extreme polar environments -- to better understand our "Ocean Planet."

The aim of our project is to measure the freshwater flux passing through Nares Strait (one of three major passages connecting the Arctic and the Atlantic through the Canadian Archipelago) in the form of freshened sea-water and ice, as well as its variability, and to determine what sets its strength. Why?? The relatively fresh water leaving Nares Strait and the rest of the Canadian Archipelago enters the Atlantic via the Labrador Sea. This is one of the few critical regions where surface water sinks to form deep water as part of the thermohaline overturning circulation. The amount of freshwater input into the ocean here influences the surface density, and therefore has the potential to significantly affect the strength of the thermohaline circulation and climate.

The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (Thomas A. Boden, Director), which includes the World Data Center for Atmospheric Trace Gases, is the primary global-change data and information analysis center of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). CDIAC responds to data and information requests from users from all over the world who are concerned with the greenhouse effect and global climate change. CDIAC's data holdings include records of the concentrations of carbon dioxide and other radiatively active gases in the atmosphere; the role of the terrestrial biosphere and the oceans in the biogeochemical cycles of greenhouse gases; emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere; long-term climate trends; the effects of elevated carbon dioxide on vegetation; and the vulnerability of coastal areas to rising sea level.