The Management and Operation of the National Center for Atmoshperic Research (NCAR)

美国国家大气研究中心（NCAR）是一个由美国国家科学基金会资助的研究和发展中心。NCAR的任务是：了解大气和相关的地球和地球空间系统的行为；支持、加强和扩展国内和国际的大学社区和更广泛的科学界的能力，并促进知识和技术的转移，以改善地球上的生活。NCAR通过紧密集成的计划来完成这一任务，这些计划围绕三个重叠的主要活动领域组织：尖端的机载和地面观测设施，拥有数千用户的社区天气和气候模型，以及千万亿级高性能计算。与此同时，还有一系列支持教育、职业发展、公众参与和增加地球科学多样性的项目。该奖项资助大学大气研究公司（UCAR）代表NSF管理和运营NCAR。了解地球系统是我们这个时代最令人兴奋和最重要的科学挑战之一——从每年给国家造成数百亿美元损失的危险天气事件的驱动因素，到气候变化对水循环、水可用性和极端天气的长期影响。在UCAR的管理下，NCAR将与更广泛的科学界合作，在更大的时间和更精细的空间尺度上观察、理解并最终预测大气和地球系统相关组成部分的演变。最终，这些进步将改善我们的国家。美国保护生命和财产、促进美国经济和支持国家安全的能力。UCAR的目标是确保NCAR继续成为社区领导者和卓越的国家中心，通过在知识前沿进行基础和变革性研究来推进大气和地球系统科学界。UCAR将运营、维护和开发NCAR最先进的观测、计算和建模设施和服务。UCAR将通过为国家中心招聘、发展和保留专家和日益多样化的劳动力来支持NCAR。UCAR还将推动一项雄心勃勃的包容性研究、教育和推广计划，为科学界服务，并正在积极行动，以增加其文化和为地球科学劳动力提供STEM教育的多样性和包容性。UCAR的愿景包括确定未来的需求；制定令人信服的NCAR战略计划；让社区参与规划、实施和检讨；提供有效和高效率的资源绩效管理；对NCAR进行战略投资；创造吸引和留住优秀人才的环境；建立促进科学发展的新伙伴关系。UCAR通过其117个成员和许多学术、政府和行业合作伙伴带来了独特的治理结构，这将加强和促进NCAR代表广泛的国家和国际利益。根据该奖项，预计NCAR将在创建客观信息方面保持领导作用，以支持有关减缓、适应、复原力和可持续性的国家和国际决策；并与科学的消费者进行互动。这将提高预测能力，并更有效地将这些进步应用于社会需求。由于UCAR的管理以学术界为基础，其管理结构有利于未来多元化科学家的发展，为学生提供世界领先的设施和令人兴奋的研究机会，并通过成功的外展计划吸引公众。UCAR自由开放交流思想、数据、模型、观测仪器和平台以及信息的政策将使中心的研究、开发和教育活动的影响最大化。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is an NSF Federally Funded Research and Development Center. NCAR's mission is: to understand the behavior of the atmosphere and related Earth and geospace systems; to support, enhance, and extend the capabilities of the university community and the broader scientific community, nationally and internationally, and to foster the transfer of knowledge and technology for the betterment of life on Earth. NCAR fulfills this mission with tightly integrated programs organized around three overlapping primary areas of activity: cutting edge airborne and ground-based observational facilities, community weather, and climate models with many thousands of users, and petascale high-performance computing. These are accompanied by a broad portfolio of programs supporting education, career development, public engagement, and increasing diversity in the geosciences. This award funds the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) to manage and operate NCAR on behalf of NSF. Understanding the Earth system is among the most exciting and important scientific challenges of our time - from the drivers of hazardous weather events that cost the nation tens of billions of dollars in damage each year to the longer-term impacts of climate change on the water cycle, water availability, and weather extremes. Under UCAR's management, NCAR will work with the broader scientific community to observe, understand, and ultimately predict the evolution of the atmosphere and related components of the Earth system at greater time and finer spatial scales. Ultimately, these advances will improve our nation?s ability to protect lives and property, enhance the American economy, and support national security. Building upon its strong stewardship of NCAR since 1960, UCAR aims to ensure that NCAR continues to be a community leader and preeminent National Center that advances the atmospheric and Earth system science communities by conducting fundamental and transformative research at the frontiers of knowledge. UCAR will operate, maintain and develop NCAR's state-of-the-art observational, computational, and modeling facilities and services. UCAR will support NCAR by recruiting, developing, and retaining an expert and increasingly diverse workforce for the National Center. UCAR will also promote an ambitious and inclusive program of research, education, and outreach to serve the scientific community, and is moving aggressively to increase diversity and inclusiveness in its culture and in STEM education for the geosciences workforce. UCAR's vision includes identifying future requirements; developing compelling NCAR strategic plans; involving the community in planning, implementation and review; providing effective and efficient performance-based management of resources; making strategic investments in NCAR; creating an environment that attracts and retains exceptional talent; and enabling new partnerships that advance the science. UCAR brings a unique governance structure through its 117 members and many academic, government, and industry partners that will strengthen and promote NCAR to represent broad national and international interests. Under this award, it is anticipated that NCAR will maintain a leadership role in creating objective information in support of national and international decisions on mitigation, adaptation, resiliency, and sustainability; and engaging interactively with the consumers of its science. This will result in improved prediction capabilities and more effective application of these advances to societal needs. Because UCAR's governance is based in academia, its management structure facilitates the development of future diverse scientists, provides access to world-leading facilities and exciting research opportunities for students, and engages the public through successful outreach program. UCAR's policy of free and open exchange of ideas, data, models, observational instruments and platforms, and information will maximize the impacts of the Center's research, development, and educational activities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.