NSF NCAR was established by the U.S. National Science Foundation in 1960 to accelerate our country's ability to understand and predict atmospheric behavior and catalyze scientific discovery by providing the university research community with world-class facilities and services that were beyond the reach of any individual institution.

More than a half-century later, we are still delivering on that mission. NSF NCAR empowers the atmospheric and Earth system science community with state-of-the-art resources, including high-performance supercomputers, tools for airborne and field observations, sophisticated computer models with artificial intelligence capabilities, and extensive data sets.

NSF NCAR's staff are experts across a broad range of disciplines. This range of expertise allows the center to work with community collaborators and facilitate progress on today’s most pressing scientific challenges. These challenges are inherently complex and require expansive knowledge and varied ways of approaching problems and developing solutions. At NSF NCAR, experts from our seven interconnected labs are able to communicate, collaborate, and make progress with fewer barriers.

NSF NCAR also provides rich education and outreach opportunities, from workforce training for early career scientists to free public lectures to scientific workshops.

Since our inception as NSF's first federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), we have been managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), a nonprofit consortium of more than 120 colleges and universities. Our headquarters are in Boulder, Colorado, with additional facilities in Wyoming and Hawaii.