Science Priorities
Confronting the challenges of a changing planet
NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR)—also known as NOAA Research—delivers insightful science and innovative tools that directly inform the operational products used across NOAA to protect life and property and promote the nation’s sustained economic growth.
As we look to the future, society faces a growing list of challenges due to a changing planet. NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict our changing environment, including the Earth’s climate, weather, oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes. This puts NOAA front and center in our nation’s efforts to understand and communicate these changes and their impacts on society.
The aim of NOAA Research—as articulated in our societal challenges—is to focus the science done by our network of laboratories and research programs on science priorities in three areas to help the nation confront the challenges of a changing planet.
Protecting Against Extreme Weather and Environmental Hazards
NOAA Research is uniquely positioned to advance our understanding of extreme events and their associated environmental hazards by improving and extending their predictions. This effort will ensure significant improvements in quality of life and the protection of vulnerable infrastructure.
Managing Too Much and Too Little Water
Our science can improve understanding, monitoring, modeling, predictions, and projections of floods, drought, water availability, and water quality. All together, this information helps to inform decision making for the protection of lives and property, manage flood and drought risk, deliver safe drinking water, and build and maintain resilient infrastructure.
Sustaining a Healthy Environment and Economy
NOAA Research’s predictive modeling and new technological approaches will provide actionable science to support environmental stewardship and sustainability while stimulating new business development, fisheries and aquaculture, transportation and shipping, and ocean/Great Lakes recreation and tourism.
Foundational Capabilities
To accomplish this work, NOAA Research relies on several foundational capabilities which serve as the core elements underpinning a changing research landscape over time.
- Integrating emerging technologies
- Sustaining environmental observations
- Improving approaches to modeling the planet
- Transitioning research into operations and applications
NOAA alone cannot solve these challenges, but NOAA Research’s expertise, data, and tools will improve our understanding of the planet and inform decisions that protect people and ecosystems.
