Emissions of ozone-destroying chemical controlled by Montreal Protocol rising again, NOAA data shows

Emissions of one of the chemicals most responsible for the Antarctic ozone hole are on the rise, despite an international treaty that required an end to its production in 2010, a new NOAA study shows.
(View paper here).

New National Academies' report lays out path forward for methane research

A new National Academies of Sciences' report calls on several federal agencies to work together to improve techniques for measuring one of the most important greenhouse gases produced by humans - methane.

Featured photo: Last call at the South Pole, for now

As hints of spring appear across the United States, NOAA’s first all-women crew at the South Pole atmospheric observatory are half a world away, ready for Antarctica’s brutal, six-month polar night.

A climate science milestone on Colorado’s Continental Divide

On January 16, 1968, an air sample collected at Niwot Ridge was measured for carbon dioxide at a lab in Boulder, Colorado--the first measurement for NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. In the 50 years since, more than 274,000 air samples have been collected at over 60 sites around the globe.

Move of Bondville, IL Aerosol System to New Facility

Aerosol measurements have been made by the NOAA/ESRL Global Monitoring Division (GMD) at the Bondville Environmental and Atmospheric Research Site (BEARS) since June of 1994. In late October of 2017, the GMD aerosol monitoring system was moved from the aging, uninsulated sea container to a new temperature-controlled building about 80 meters away.

Warm air helped make 2017 ozone hole smallest since 1988

Measurements from satellites this year showed the hole in Earth’s ozone layer that forms over Antarctica each September was the smallest observed since 1988, scientists from NASA and NOAA announced today.

South Pole sees first sunrise in 6 months with arrival of spring

The fall equinox signals the coming of winter for the Northern Hemisphere, but heralds the arrival of spring — and the first sunrise since March — for researchers at NOAA’s South Pole Atmospheric Baseline Observatory.

Ozone treaty taking a bite out of US greenhouse gas emissions

The Montreal Protocol, the international treaty adopted to restore Earth’s protective ozone layer, has significantly reduced emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals from the United States. In a twist, a new study by NOAA and CIRES scientists shows the 30-year old treaty has had a major side benefit - reducing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S.

After 2000-era plateau, global methane levels hitting new highs

Following a plateau in the early 2000s, global concentrations of the powerful greenhouse gas methane have hit new highs in recent years. Chemical fingerprint tests seem to rule out a major role for fossil fuels. With more than half a dozen possible natural and human sources, how will scientists figure out where it's coming from?

NOAA’s Greenhouse Gas Index up 40 percent since 1990

NOAA’s Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, which tracks the warming influence of long-lived greenhouse gases, has increased by 40 percent from 1990 to 2016 — with most of that attributable to rising carbon dioxide levels, according to NOAA climate scientists.

Possible new threat to Earth’s ozone layer

The Montreal Protocol has been hailed for controlling chlorine-based chemicals that created a vast hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. But new research by British and American scientists suggest a chemical not controlled by the international treaty poses a potential risk to the Earth’s protective ozone layer.

As Alaska's North Slope warms, greenhouse gases have nowhere to go but up

The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) being released from tundra in the northern region of Alaska during early winter has increased 70 percent since 1975, according to a new regional climate paper by scientists participating in a research project funded by NOAA and NASA.

Study published on reduced lifetime for a future strong greenhouse gas

NOAA/ESRL scientists and their colleagues at the University of East Anglia, Utrecht University, and NCAR calculated an atmospheric lifetime of the trace gas, sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), based on measurements in the polar stratospheric vortex and modeled transport into the stratosphere.

Fifty years ago, a historic balloon launch that changed the way we see the ozone layer

What started out as a modest research project driven by scientific curiosity provided the agency that would later become NOAA with some of the first insights into how ozone was distributed in the atmosphere.

Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide

A trace gas present in the atmosphere in miniscule amounts is helping scientists answer one of the biggest questions out there: Has plant growth increased alongside rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?