Happy Summer everyone!

As we head into summer, my guidance to the HQ comms team is “rest and recharge'' over the next two months. I hope everyone is able to find some time this summer to step away from work and spend quality time doing what you enjoy most. For myself, it will be visiting our local pool and swimming hole with my two daughters (check out the photo to see us visiting in 2020), as well as taking a family trip to San Jose, where we lived previously.

As we head into our 16th month of remote work for most of us, it is important to consider what we have learned from working virtually and how we can apply those lessons to our workplaces moving forward. Personally, I am looking forward to returning to the office. That said, it is clear that how and where we work will be changing. As we return to our offices, we will face some inevitable communication challenges as we adjust to this new hybrid environment. Top of mind for me is maintaining a sense of OAR community among our entire workforce...no matter where we work. I look forward to tackling how we can best do this with the help of the OAR comms team and the entire OAR family.

In the meantime, please heed the advice of our leadership team and look after yourselves. Your health and well-being is priority number one.

Best, Murph

The NOAA Central & Boulder Libraries are excited to announce a new ebook purchase for NOAA. OverDrive offers access for all NOAA staff and contractors to ebooks and audiobooks on: leadership, professional development, work/life skills, diversity and inclusion. This platform also includes 130 magazines, like the Economist and New Scientist, for borrowing.

Here's how to access it:

Happy reading!

Atmospheric levels of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, are on the rise. A new study by NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) has found that microbial sources - such as wetlands, shallow lakes and rivers, livestock and more - are largely to blame.

Earth's climate is determined by a delicate balance between how much of the Sun's energy is absorbed and how much thermal infrared radiation Earth emits to space. A positive energy imbalance means the Earth system is gaining energy, causing the planet to heat up. Now, NOAA and NASA researchers have found that Earth’s energy imbalance approximately doubled.

Protecting and exploring our global ocean is a huge job, and cutting-edge technologies help NOAA dive deeper, gather more ocean data and solve some of its biggest challenges. Learn more about five innovative high-tech tools borne from NOAA’s partnerships with the fishing industry and technology companies large and small.

NOAA Technology Partnerships Office's Tiffany House was selected to receive a Women of Color Technology Rising Star award for 2021. This award recognizes early- and mid-career professionals who are helping to shape technology for the future. Tiffany will be recognized at the virtual Women of Color STEM Conference this October. TPO is proud to have Tiffany as a rising star on their team!

Today’s climate models are forecasting an even hotter future than their predecessors. But a paper co-authored by CIRES scientists and published in Nature Climate Change highlights how models may err on the side of too much warming: Earth’s warming clouds cool the surface more than anticipated.

Great Lakes coastal wetlands are immensely productive and important ecosystems. Olivia Anderson, a biology master’s student at Central Michigan University and a 2020–2021 Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR) Graduate Research Fellow recipient, is working on a study to better understand how extreme changes in water levels are impacting Great Lakes coastal wetlands.

The Technology Partnerships Office unveiled their new social media account just in time for Ocean Month! The new account features updates about NOAA technology transfer, public-private partnerships, and small business innovation research. Follow @NOAAinnovate to stay updated on NOAA’s research-to-commercialization activities.

Come learn about the Pathways Programs on July 13th and 15th! This training will provide an in-depth overview of all things Pathways including the different programs and the hiring process. This session will be helpful for hiring managers and supervisors who want to learn more about Pathways. Register here, and after registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Tune in for the next installments of the Climate Equity and Environmental Justice Seminar Series on July 1 and July 13. This series aims to familiarize the NOAA community with the concepts of climate equity and environmental justice and examine how NOAA may better serve vulnerable and underrepresented communities. 

The CIRES study on U.S. buildings being located in in disaster hotspots was featured in NPR.

The Washington Post covered the joint NOAA-NASA study that found that the earth is absorbing an "unprecedented" amount of heat.

NPR covered the news of record-breaking CO2 levels at Mauna Loa.

Atmospheric science is overwhelmingly white. Science Magazine looked into how Black scientists are igniting a change.