NOAA: Making Waves

Join us as we kick off a new ocassional series to highlight some of the great videos available on NOAA's Ocean Today website. In this episode, we showcase a fantastic video about exploring the deep ocean.

Join us for a talk with two NOAA experts about a multi-year effort to restore the environment in the aftermath of an oil spill that dumped 53,000 gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay. While we're focusing on this one spill, you'll get a good idea of how we deal as a nation with big spills wherever and whenever they occur along our coasts. Guests for this episode include Greg Baker, regional resource coordinator with NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration, and Natalie Cosentino-Manning, restoration program manager for the Southwest region of the U.S. with NOAA's Fisheries Restoration Center.

A new chemical analysis study confirms the official estimate of how fast gases and oil were leaking during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill; public comment period is now open for initial Gulf of Mexico restoration projects.

Did you know we provide answers to over 180 questions about the ocean on our website? In this episode, we run down the top five most popular Ocean Facts as determined by readership statistics.

The powerful Japanese earthquake and resulting tsunami in March, 2011, washed untold tons of marine debris into the Pacific Ocean. Carey Morishige, Pacific Islands Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program, explains where this debris may be, where it's heading, what's being done about it, and what you can do to help.

NOAA is providing grants totaling over $1.6 million dollars to create seasonal and weekly toxic algal bloom forecasts that are more accurate and provide better early warning of toxic blooms in the Gulf of Maine.

A peer-reviewed study commissioned by NOAA shows the American people assign an estimated total economic value of $33.57 billion for the coral reefs of the main Hawaiian Islands.

Figuring out the exact location of a point on the Earth's surface in three dimensions is what the science of geodesy is all about. Thanks to the network of satellites in space known as the Global Positioning System, we can determine latitude and longitude with great accuracy. Heights, however, are a trickier business to nail down.

In this episode, we talk with NOAA Chief Geodesist Dru Smith to learn how scientists are using measurements of gravity to refine a complex mathematical model of the Earth's shape known as the geoid. Once the new model is deployed, the hope is that we'll be able to use GPS receivers to figure out our current elevation in most places across the nation within an accuracy of two centimeters or less.

State and federal trustee agencies will use most of the funds from a $36.8 million settlement of natural resource damages to restore natural resources injured by the Nov. 7, 2007 oil spill in the San Francisco Bay and to improve Bay Area recreational opportunities impacted by the spill. The funds are part of a $44.4 million settlement with Regal Stone Limited and Fleet Management Limited, the companies responsible for the container ship Cosco Busan that spilled 53,000 gallons of oil into the bay after hitting the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Join us this week for two stories and an Ocean Fact :

Arctic Sea Floor Inventory. NOAA scientists are collecting environmental data off the coast of Alaska in the Chukchi Sea to get a clear picture of this underwater ecosystem before any offshore development begins.

A Whale of a Partnership. NOAA, French sanctuaries join forces to protect endangered humpback whales along their annual migration route.

Ocean Fact. Where is the largest protected area in NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary system?