What is ocean noise and what is NOAA doing to reduce this threat in our national marine sanctuaries? Many marine organisms, including marine mammals, sea turtles, fish and invertebrates, rely on sound and hearing for their survival. Over the last century, increases in human activity within our ocean have led to increasing levels of noise. This increasing amount of noise from human sources is a rising concern for the health and well-being of marine organisms and ecosystems. In this episode, we talk with NOAA marine ecologist Dr. Leila Hatch about her work to better understand the ocean soundscape by developing programs that can establish baselines, detect changes in noise levels, and support the design of methods to reduce noise impacts.

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Money does not grow on trees, but it could be growing in our coastal salt marshes and sea grass beds. A team of researchers is working at Waquoit Bay Research Reserve on Cape Cod in Massachusetts on the "Bringing Wetlands to Market" project to study the connections between coastal wetlands, carbon dioxide uptake and storage, and the global carbon trading economy. Wetlands have the potential to serve as valuable assets in carbon trading markets – but only if we protect them, and don't dig up the treasure!

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Boaters rely on NOAA's nautical charts for depth measurements so they don't accidentally ground on sandbars or other underwater obstructions. Take three minutes out of your day to hear Captain Shepard Smith of the NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson discuss how nautical charts are updated—and how NOAA is using promising new technology (ocean robots!) that will add shallow depths to nautical charts.

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Coral reefs are under intense pressure from climate change, pollution, and unsustainable use. So what can we do about it? To answer that question, we need to better understand the main threat to our reefs. Humans.

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Alaska—the largest and most remote state in the United States—is filled with wilderness and beauty, and unfortunately with marine debris. With a longer coastline than all the other U.S. states combined, Alaska finds itself with the greatest concentration of marine debris in our country. In this episode, we learn just how challenging the issue of marine debris can be in the vast wilderness of this state, how the NOAA Marine Debris program is working to solve this problem, and how the key to beating this issue is in the innovation and ingenuity of the community working to address it.

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Take a virtual journey to Penobscot Bay, Maine, to see how harbor pilots use U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) data for real-time ocean and weather conditions. This information is critical for safe navigation as pilots carefully move tankers and other vessels often carrying dangerous cargo safely in and out of port. IOOS coastal and marine data (e.g., water temperature, water level, currents, winds, and waves) are collected by many different tools including satellites, buoys, tide gauges, radar stations, and underwater vehicles. Most of the data collected are streamed online and viewable on digital maps for easy access.

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Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, are developing atomic clocks that are so accurate that the effects of the general theory of relativity come into play. That means if two of these clocks are at slightly different elevations—even a few centimeters—the higher clock runs noticeably faster. In this episode, find out why this is a problem for NIST, how the National Geodetic Survey helped to solve this problem, and how these amazing atomic clocks may someday play an important role in the science of geodesy.