Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences

The Arctic Council is the leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic States, Arctic indigenous communities and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues, in particular on issues of sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic. The Ottawa Declaration lists the following countries as Members of the Arctic Council: Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States. The work of the Council is primarily carried out in six Working Groups.

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility is a multi-laboratory, U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) scientific user facility, and a key contributor to national and international research efforts related to global climate change. ARM data are currently collected from three atmospheric observatories—Southern Great Plains, North Slope of Alaska, and Eastern North Atlantic—which represent the broad range of climate conditions around the world, as well as from the three ARM mobile facilities and ARM aerial facilities. Nine DOE national laboratories share the responsibility of managing and operating the ARM Facility. Along with these laboratories, several constituent groups help provide scientific guidance and develop ARM priorities. ARM also collaborates with many national and international partners.

The Australian Institute of Marine Science is Australia’s tropical marine research agency. Established in 1972, AIMS was an explorer in its early years: defining the Great Barrier Reef and its biodiversity, and introducing Australians to remarkable marine ecosystems across northern Australia.

In the past 20 years, our focus has turned to monitoring and understanding the changes we see in these ecosystems, from Western Australia’s Scott Reef to Darwin’s coastal waters to the Great Barrier Reef.

The next decade will be one of action: helping to sustain and repair these ecosystems in the face of a changing climate, and creating the tools to enable the best possible planning and decision-making for conservation and sustainable development of the energy, mineral, tourism and food resources in and under our tropical oceans.

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 U.S. launched the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) in the late 1980s to study the ocean carbon cycle. An ambitious goal was set to understand the controls on the concentrations and fluxes of carbon and associated nutrients in the ocean. A new field of ocean biogeochemistry emerged with an emphasis on quality measurements of carbon system parameters and interdisciplinary field studies of the biological, chemical and physical process which control the ocean carbon cycle. As we studied ocean biogeochemistry, we learned that our simple views of carbon uptake and transport were severely limited, and a new "wave" of ocean science was born. U.S. JGOFS has been supported primarily by the U.S. National Science Foundation in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy and the Office of Naval Research. U.S. JGOFS, ended in 2005 with the conclusion of the Synthesis and Modeling Project (SMP).

COSMIC is the Constellation Observing System for Meterology, Ionosphere, and Climate program. The COSMIC Program is housed within the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and the UCAR Community Programs (UCP), located in Boulder, Colorado. The mission of the COSMIC Program is to develop innovative observational techniques that use signals from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), and to support the application of these techniques in research and operations for the broader Earth Science community. In addition to the COSMIC-1 and COSMIC-2 satellite missions, the COSMIC Program Office oversees a variety of projects related to both space-based and ground-based GPS.

The University of California, Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory (BML) is dedicated to understanding environmental processes at the land-sea interface on California’s North Coast – an area known for the productivity and diversity of its marine and terrestrial ecosystems. BML’s history of research, training and outreach has contributed invaluably to our knowledge of coastal systems and the policy that protects them.

Located on a point jutting into the ocean along the remote north coast of California, Trinidad Head is ideally suited for atmospheric measurements. Much of the time the site experiences baseline conditions, but it also allows for the monitoring of regionally influenced air, affected mainly by forested lands, but to a lesser extent, air having a small urban influence. An instrument trailer was installed in April 2002 allowing measurements of aerosols, surface ozone, radiation, and flask sampling for halocarbons and carbon cycle gases. Within a year, weekly airborne vertical profile measurements of carbon cycle gases will be collected in flasks above and upwind of Trinidad Head. CMDL's measurements will provide a continuous baseline of pollution and climate forcing agents in air entering the U.S. Further plans include installing a GCMS for measuring PAN, hydrocarbons, and certain halocarbons. Additional measurements will be included as the Observatory matures. Already, at this location, Scripps Institution of Oceanography is operating two in situ instruments, one as part of the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), the other for measuring changes in atmospheric oxygen concentrations.

The Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E) is a research group led by Dr. F. Martin Ralph at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. The mission of CW3E is to provide 21st Century water cycle science, technology and outreach to support effective policies and practices that address the impacts of extreme weather and water events on the environment, people and the economy of Western North America.

The Polar Science Center conducts basic and applied research on the oceanography, climatology, meteorology, biology and ecology of the ice-covered regions on Earth and elsewhere in our solar system . The scope of PSC research and fieldwork includes the Arctic and the Antarctic, as well as sea-ice, glaciers and continental ice sheets. The PSC staff comprises 20 Principal Investigators, 7 support staff and a varying number of post-doctoral research associates, graduate research assistants, and undergraduate student helpers.

Most of the funding for PSC’s research comes from grants and contracts with U.S. Federal agencies such as NSF, NASA, NOAA and ONR. A large fraction of PSC research addresses the relationships between the polar regions and the global climate system. Specifically, our research includes observing and modeling the physical processes that control the nature and distribution of sea-ice, the structure and circulation of high latitude oceans and atmosphere, and the interactions among air, ocean, ice and biota.

The Polar Science Center is a department within the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington.

NASA's Aura program is dedicated to understanding the changing chemistry of our atmosphere. Aura (Latin for breeze) obtains measurements of ozone, aerosols and key gases throughout the atmosphere using technologically innovative space instrumentation. Scientists use these data to gain revolutionary insights into the chemistry of our atmosphere.

Faculty and students of Oregon State University's College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences are advancing the frontiers of knowledge of the ocean, atmosphere, and Earth system. Our success is based on an interdisciplinary approach and state-of-the-art technology and facilities. Increasingly COAS research is exploring the edge-the interfaces between ocean and atmosphere, ocean and ice, land and sea, land and air, and deep ocean and seafloor. COAS oceanographic research and facilities have achieved national and international prominence since their inception over 50 years ago. COAS is a national leader in the study of coastal zones and ocean processes, conducting and integrating field experiments, theoretical investigations, and numerical modeling and simulations to study all aspects of ocean, land, and atmosphere processes and interactions. COAS is also recognized as a leader in the study of small-scale ocean physics and mixing processes, with expertise in instrument design, field experiments, theory, and modeling.

The NOAA Center for Tsunami Research at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory focuses on tsunami forecast modeling and research. The primary responsibility of the NOAA Center for Tsunami Research (NCTR) is to provide assistance to the Tsunami Warning Centers (TWC) in the form of Forecast Modeling software products specifically designed to support the Tsunami Warning Center’s forecasting operations. In addition to this, the NCTR has traditionally been committed to Inundation Modeling to assist coastal communities in their efforts to assess the risk, and mitigate the potential of tsunami hazard.

The Climate Change Institute is an interdisciplinary research unit organized to conduct research and graduate education focused on variability of Earth's climate, ecosystems, and other environmental systems and on the interaction between humans and the natural environment. The Institute provides expertise on climate-related matters to the people and governments of Maine, the Nation, and beyond.

Find everything from Philippine general weather information to climate information for agriculture to information from the astronomical observatory. Supported by the Republic of the Philippines government.

We are a group of researchers dedicated to understanding, protecting, and harnessing the world’s least explored and most vital frontier—the ocean. We represent diverse fields, departments, and perspectives, but through interdisciplinary research and education programs, we are making important progress in understanding the roles that the oceans play in supporting life on Earth. Oceans at MIT is part of the MIT Global Environmental Initiative, which is developing sustainable solutions for the planet’s growing population.

ESONET stands for European Seas Observatory NETwork, networking institutions, persons, tools and know-how on deep sea observatories. It aims to promote the implementation and the management of a network of long-term multidisciplinary ocean observatories in deep waters around Europe. It wishes to define an organization – with the necessary critical mass – capable of gathering the resources of the participating institutes. The ultimate goal is to define durable solutions through a joint programme of activities.

The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was established by Presidential Initiative in 1989 and mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990 to “assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.” The U.S. Global Change Research Program comprises 13 Federal agencies that conduct or use research on global change and its impacts on society, in support of the Nation's response to global change.

Climate Central is an independent organization of leading scientists and journalists researching and reporting the facts about our changing climate and its impact on the American public. Climate Central surveys and conducts scientific research on climate change and informs the public of key findings. Our scientists publish and our journalists report on climate science, energy, sea level rise, wildfires, drought, and related topics. Climate Central is not an advocacy organization. We do not lobby, and we do not support any specific legislation, policy or bill. Climate Central is a qualified 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.

The Institute’s research focuses on advancing ecosystem-based fisheries management, a strategy which recognizes that the oceans’ problems are interconnected and that species and habitats cannot be successfully managed in isolation; as well as on advancing knowledge about vulnerable and ecologically important marine animals that are understudied. We are dedicated to developing scientific approaches to sustainably manage forage fish, small schooling fish that are food for marine mammals and seabirds but are being depleted from our oceans.