Established in 1960, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is the only national supercomputing and mass storage facility dedicated exclusively to the atmospheric, oceanic, and related geosciences. Together with its partners at universities and research centers, NCAR focuses on exploring and understanding the atmosphere and its interactions with the Sun, the oceans, the biosphere, and human society.

At NCAR, more than 120 Ph.D. researchers and hundreds of visiting scientists conduct interdisciplinary research with state-of-the art tools such as supercomputers, computer models, aircraft, and radar. Scientists at NCAR have discovered much about the Earth system, including how the Sun influences the Earth, how climate change can be predicted, and how we can better forecast the weather. NCAR researchers also study how weather and climate change affects people and environments around the globe.

NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL), which includes the Scientific Computing Division (SCD) and the Institute for Mathematical Applications in the Geosciences (IMAGe), is a world leader in supercomputing and cyberinfrastructure. CISL supports high-performance computers, data storage, research datasets, and high-speed networks for the geosciences community. CISL also conducts research on information technology, computational science, and mathematics.

NCAR is operated by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation, our primary sponsor. UCAR is a consortium of 63 U.S. universities that grant degrees in atmospheric sciences and related disciplines.