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NOAA

In A Time Of Climate Crisis, Mass Firings At NOAA Threaten Public Safety

First, this makes the country less safe. Full stop. NWS offices were operating with staffing constraints (meaning they were already doing more with less). They are now operating doubly so. This is going to lead to stress, burn out, risk for miscues, and critical tools breaking. This is not hype, hyperbole, exaggeration, any of it. I know dozens of NWS employees. This has been an issue for *years.* It was already a problem, and this has now just been made immeasurably worse. And there will be noticeable impacts. Second, I am gravely concerned about tools breaking that are critical to observations, analysis, and forecasts and not being repaired in a timely manner as we head into severe and hurricane seasons.

Three ‘Most Important’ Greenhouse Gases Reached Record Highs

Levels of the three “most important” greenhouse gases — methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide — in the atmosphere reached record highs again in 2023, according to research conducted by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML). Air samples taken by GML indicated that levels of the heat-trapping gases did not rise as fast as the record leaps of recent years, but were still in accordance with sharp increases recorded in the past decade, a press release from NOAA said.

Increase In Atmospheric Methane Set Another Record During 2021

For the second year in a row, NOAA scientists observed a record annual increase in atmospheric levels of methane, a powerful, heat-trapping greenhouse gas that’s the second biggest contributor to human-caused global warming after carbon dioxide. NOAA’s preliminary analysis showed the annual increase in atmospheric methane during 2021 was 17 parts per billion (ppb), the largest annual increase recorded since systematic measurements began in 1983. The increase during 2020 was 15.3 ppb. Atmospheric methane levels averaged 1,895.7 ppb during 2021, or around 162% greater than pre-industrial levels. From NOAA’s observations, scientists estimate global methane emissions in 2021 are 15% higher than the 1984-2006 period.

NOAA Predicts One-Foot Sea-Level Rise By 2050

Ocean levels along the U.S. coastline are projected to rise by an average of 10 to 12 inches over the next three decades, worsening the threat of flooding in dozens of highly populated cities, according to a new report released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other federal agencies. The additional foot of sea-level rise that millions in the U.S. are predicted to face by mid-century is equivalent to the amount experienced in the previous hundred years—a manifestation of the climate crisis that scientists attribute to unmitigated greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. This intensification of rising seas "will create a profound increase in the frequency of coastal flooding, even in the absence of storms or heavy rainfall," said NOAA.