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NCAR: Global Climate Academy
| Article
# : |
15205 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1989 |
3,703 Words |
| Author
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John Firor
John Firor is the directory of the Advanced Study Program of
NCAR. He joined NCAR shortly after it was established and
served as its director from 1968 to 1974. He has been a staff
member of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, a Visiting
Scholar at Resources for the Future, a Senior Fellow at the
Hubert H. Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs of the
University of Minnesota, and an adjunct professor of
astrophysics at the University of Colorado. |
Seen from afar, the buildings are almost invisible against the backdrop of the reddish sedimentary rocks standing on end in Boulder, Colorado, and forming the eastern-most rampart of America's backbone--the Rocky Mountains. Viewed by anyone standing near the structures on Walter Orr Roberts Mesa, the clean, straight lines of red concrete against the blue western sky suggest order and beauty; the architectural motifs from Stonehenge and from 1,000-year-old cliff dwellings suggest calm and permanence. But for the scientists and visitors studying at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), their rapidly advancing science is anything but orderly, peaceful, and permanent, indeed, the view from the building, eastward over the calm undulations of the Great Plains of North America and to the west into the rugged and sometimes dangerous mountains, seems to symbolize the great transition that today involves the science of the atmosphere.
NCAR (it has been called en-car by the entire atmospheric science community since the day of its founding) was created out of the feeling of uneasiness that spread throughout the earth science establishment during the 1950s. Studies of the exciting scientific problems of the day were increasingly moving beyond the capabilities of a university professor working with a small group of graduate students. Whether the topic was the structure of a thunderstorm, the origin of an ocean current, the history of an ice age, or the cause of an earthquake, progress always seemed to require coordinated measurements over large areas, continuous measurements over long times, and sets of data too large for one individual to handle. And in most of these topics the road to detailed understanding included the use of gigantic numerical simulations, which, though based on well established physical principles, required more sophisticated computers and larger networks of scientists than were then available.
For atmospheric scientists, this growing perception of inadequacy was coupled with the observation that society was asking more of them each day--better weather forecasts, more timely and precise storm warnings, improved monitoring and prediction of conditions at higher altitudes to inform pilots of unfavorable conditions, and some easy answers to the "smog" that was beginning to annoy residents of metropolitan areas. The U.S. government was spending large sums through both the Weather Bureau and the military services to improve forecasts and warnings, airlines were impatiently establishing their own weather groups, and organizations both public and private were seeding clouds at many locations in the hope that rain would ensue. And at about the same time, television discovered the good-looking
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