NCAR Mesa Lab, Boulder, Colorado

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is a non-governmental U.S.-based institute whose stated mission is "exploring and understanding our atmosphere and its interactions with the Sun, the oceans, the biosphere, and human society."

Operations

The institute houses researchers focusing on issues such as air quality, weather complexities, and climate change. NCAR has several of the world's fastest modern supercomputers for modeling complex weather systems and the effects of global warming. Complex software models such as Atmosphere-Ocean Global Climate Models (AOGCMs) are used.

NCAR's Kevin E. Trenberth is one of the lead authors for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's new Fourth Assessment Report.

Architecture

NCAR's flagship Mesa Laboratory is located in the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado, in a dramatic complex of buildings designed by architect I. M. Pei on grounds laid out by Dan Kiley. The site is maintained as a nature preserve.

Visitors

NCAR's visitor center offers free guided tours and self-guided audio tours of an antique Cray supercomputer and other computers, plus hands-on exhibits demonstrating weather phenomena and Earth's changing climate.

See also

• University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
• Climate model
• Attribution of recent climate change
• Earth Simulator
• HadCM3 - explanation of an AOGCM
• EdGCM - a global climate model for students
• CCCma
• Edward Martell - NCAR's former radiochemist
• ESMF

External links

• Web site
• Visit NCAR
• NCAR supercomputers

This climatology/meteorology-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.