Noaa

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), under the United States Department of Commerce (DOC), manages the National Marine Sanctuary System, which includes 13 sites and one marine national monument.

In 2015, researchers with the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center revealed the opah, or moonfish, as the first fully warm-blooded fish.

NOAA’s scientific integrity policy prohibits political interference with the conduct and communication of the agency’s scientific findings.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Monday it will be upgrading its Global Forecast System, one of the primary computer models used to predict weather across North America and the world.

NOAA forecasted in June that the hypoxic zone — an area with little to no oxygen to support marine life — would be 12,600 square kilometers, which would have been smaller than the five-year average. The actual size proved far larger.

Quinn worked in fiction writing and editing for various magazines before switching her genre to science writing halfway through her undergraduate degree. Since then, she has written mostly for scientific institutions, including the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), Fermilab, and NOAA. She still dabbles in fiction and one day might finish the novel she's been writing since middle school. As long as she is getting to play with words all day, she's happy.

NOAA posted a video to YouTube of the octopus sitting on the ocean floor and wiggling its arms. It has more than 200,000 views since March 3.

There's some good news, for a change, in the latest climate forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA scientists say the world's threatened coral reefs, which for decades have been bleaching out and dying off because of climate-induced changes in ocean conditions, might be getting a respite this year.

Eakin explains that toward the end of last year, massive bleaching occurred around the world and NOAA is now collecting data on the extent of that die-off. In 2005, 90 percent of the coral in the Caribbean bleached and nearly 60 percent died.

NOAA scientists describe coral reefs as the "rainforests of the sea," noting that these fragile marine ecosystems provide important services such as coastal protection, commercial fish habitats and ecotourism, estimated to be worth as much as $375 billion globally each year. And if predictions are right, the coral reefs will survive, at least for another year, to share these benefits with the world around them.