Our Mission

The mission of the NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory is:

to discover and understand the chemical, dynamical
and radiative processes that are important in the Earth's atmosphere,
to improve NOAA's capability to predict its behavior.

The Aeronomy Laboratory's research focuses on the chemical and physical processes of the lower two layers of the atmosphere, known as the troposphere and stratosphere (see figure below).

Both the stratosphere and the troposphere have important direct and indirect effects on the well-being of humankind. In this century, it has become increasingly clear that humans are influencing the chemical composition of the troposphere and stratosphere in ways that can impact conditions at the Earth's surface. Some of the most challenging environmental issues of our time have arisen. These form the core of the Aeronomy Lab's research today: understanding the atmospheric processes important to model predictions of changes in climate, regional air quality, and the stratospheric ozone layer.

The Aeronomy Laboratory also assesses the current state of scientific understanding on these three topics and interacts with those who use this information both within NOAA and elsewhere.

The Regions of the Atmosphere. The Earth's atmosphere has layers, which are actually characterized by how the temperature of the atmosphere changes with altitude. The troposphere begins at the Earth's surface, which acts as a source of heat resulting from absorption of visible sunlight. The temperature decreases with height in the troposphere, and so the air is well mixed in this region (Greek: tropos, a turning). Weather phenomena such as thunderstorms and clouds occur in this layer, as does most of the commercial airline traffic at present (exceptions include the higher-flying supersonic aircraft, for example, the Concorde). Near about 9-12 kilometers (16-17 kilometers in the tropics) a new region called the stratosphere begins. The stratosphere is heated from above (absorption of solar ultraviolet radiation by oxygen and ozone) and temperature increases with altitude. In this region there is much slower mixing (Latin: stratum, layer). The "ozone layer" resides in the stratosphere. At about 50 kilometers (30 miles), temperature begins to decrease with altitude again and the mesosphere begins.