NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research (2024)

FAQs

What is the NOAA ocean exploration? ›

Learn about NOAA Ocean Exploration, a federal organization dedicated to exploring the unknown ocean, unlocking its potential through scientific discovery, technological advancements, and data delivery.

Today, over 80% of the global ocean (and 50% of the U.S. Ocean) is still unmapped, with even more unexplored. One of the biggest challenges of ocean exploration is the intense pressures in the deep ocean. In addition, zero visibility and extreme cold temperatures make it difficult to explore the vast ocean.

As of June 2024, 26.1% of the global seafloor had been mapped with modern high-resolution technology (multibeam sonar systems), usually mounted to ships, that can reveal the seafloor in greater detail.

Ocean research: Exact global numbers are not available, but as an example, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a budget of approximately $786.275 million for the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) in 2024.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) mission is to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts, to share that knowledge and information with others, and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources as the Nation's authoritative environmental ...

The NOAA Research Laboratories conduct an integrated program of research, technology development, and services to improve the understanding of Earth's atmosphere, oceans and inland waters, and to describe and predict changes occurring to them.

Misleading. NASA did not abruptly stop deep-sea research following the failure of a satellite in 1978. The agency continues to study the deep ocean and launched missions as recently as 2021.

Conditions in the deep-sea environment include very high pressures, total darkness, extreme temperatures, and toxic chemicals.

What happens to your body at 13000 feet underwater? The pressure at 13,000 feet underwater is about 1,000 atmospheres, about 100 times the pressure at sea level. This pressure would have a devastating effect on the human body. The lungs would collapse, and the blood vessels would burst, leading to internal bleeding.

There's an estimated three million shipwrecks scattered across the ocean floor, from sunken World War II destroyers to colonial Spanish galleons to small abandoned dinghies.

Will we ever discover 100% of the ocean? ›

Just how much of the ocean is explored? Only a minuscule 20%, leaving an astounding 80% shrouded in mystery. This article uncovers the challenges and endeavors of plunging into the unknown depths, offering a glimpse into why so much of our oceanic realm remains untouched.

More than 80 percent of the ocean has not been mapped, explored, or even seen by humans. A far greater percentage of the surfaces of the moon and the planet Mars has been mapped and studied than of our own ocean floor.

One of the biggest challenges of ocean exploration comes down to physics. Dr. Gene Carl Feldman, an oceanographer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, explains that the ocean, at great depths, is characterized by zero visibility, extremely cold temperatures, and crushing amounts of pressure.

Through its annual competitive grant opportunity, NOAA Ocean Exploration funds projects designed to enhance ocean exploration and scientific knowledge of unexplored or poorly known areas of the ocean.

The remaining unclaimed “area” shrinks. It has already declined from more than 70 percent of the sea floor to just 43 percent. 57 percent of the ocean floor has already been parceled out.

The National Ocean Service helps decision makers find solutions. We are the nation's leader in observing, measuring, assessing, protecting, and managing coastal, ocean, and Great Lakes areas. Most of the ocean is unseen by human eyes — more than 80% of our ocean is unmapped, unobserved and unexplored.

Ocean exploration is a part of oceanography describing the exploration of ocean surfaces. Notable explorations were undertaken by the Greeks, the Romans, the Polynesians, the Phoenicians, Phytheas, Herodotus, the Vikings, the Portuguese and Muslims.

To reach these ambitious goals, the OCAP maps out eight priority actions—including increasing offshore wind and marine energy, decarbonizing the maritime shipping sector, conserving and restoring coastal and marine habitats that naturally store carbon (“blue carbon”), and expanding protected areas in the ocean (“marine ...

Marine debris is a global problem. The mission of the NOAA Marine Debris Program is to investigate and prevent adverse impacts from marine debris.