NOAA’s role in hurricanes does not end with forecasting. Days before Hurricane Irene hit the U.S., the Office of Coast Survey mobilized assets and personnel, getting ready to respond to navigational needs of the 192 ports in Irene’s path along the Eastern Seaboard.

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Hurricane Irene may be over, but works continues across the National Ocean Service. Read a synopsis of NOS activity and key information gathered before, during, and after the tropical storm.

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A researcher in Hawaii has come up with a new explanation for the effects of ocean acidification on coral reefs: the "proton flux hypothesis" is that calcification of coral skeletons are dependent on the passage of hydrogen ions between the water column and the coral tissue....

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In early August, a mysterious "orange goo" substance washed ashore in the remote Inupiaq village of Kivalina along Alaska's northwest coast. The unusual phenomenon generated a lot of media speculation and troubled residents of the village, who feared contamination of their water tanks and berry harvest. To determine the nature of this substance, Alaska's Department of Environmental Control sent samples to NOAA's Analytical Response Team in Charleston, SC, for thorough analysis and verification.

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Preserving just 4 percent of the ocean could protect crucial habitat for the vast majority of marine mammal species, from sea otters to blue whales, according to researchers in a new study....

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Florida's corals dropped in numbers due to unseasonably cold weather conditions in 2010. The chilly January temperatures caused the most catastrophic loss of corals within the Florida Reef Tract, which spans 160 miles (260 kilometers) from Miami to the Dry Tortugas and is the only living barrier reef in the continental U.S....

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As the Team Lead of Navigation Response Team 2, I head up a three-person team that responds to emergencies related to marine transportation issues such as ship grounding, aircraft crashes over the water, hurricanes and other natural disasters, search and targeting requests from state and federal agencies, as well as standard hydrographic survey operations. We travel throughout the United States when required, and operate from North Carolina through Florida in non-response situations.

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The phytoplankton bloom pictured in a new Envisat image stretches across the Barents Sea off the coast of mainland Europe’s most northern point, Cape Nordkinn....

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While residents along the New Jersey and New York coasts rush to the store for batteries and bottled water, scientists at Stevens Institute of Technology are heading to the laboratory to help predict the impact of Hurricane Irene.

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In the waters off the North Carolina coast, historically-significant World War II submarines and shipwrecks rest on the seafloor, a testament to a relatively unknown chapter in US history. According to a new report, the shipwrecks are not only important for their cultural value, but also as habitat for a wide diversity of fishes, invertebrates and algal species. Additionally, due to their unique location within an important area for biological productivity, the shipwrecks are potential sites for examining community change....

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