NCAS Long Term Science - Single Centre

The UK’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) is asking for five years of funding to keep its core scientific infrastructure running—from weather balloons and air-sampling stations to supercomputer models that simulate the atmosphere. This is not a single experiment or a flashy new project. It is the steady, unglamorous work that underpins almost every major advance in UK weather forecasting, air quality monitoring, and climate prediction. Without these long-term measurements and modelling platforms, researchers would lose the ability to track how the atmosphere is changing year after year, or to test the computer codes that underpin flood warnings and pollution alerts. The funding will support five essential activities: continuous atmospheric measurements, fundamental physical science, numerical model development and testing, computing support for researchers, and training the next generation of atmospheric scientists. If this work continues, the UK retains the ability to produce reliable climate projections, improve severe weather warnings, and understand how air pollution moves across cities and regions. Much of this research is fundamental science—it does not deliver a product or a policy overnight—but it provides the data and tools that government agencies, emergency planners, and industry quietly depend on every day.