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Request Facilities
Available Observing Facilities and their Contacts
NSF’s Lower Atmospheric Observing Facilities (LAOF) are available on a competitive basis to qualified researchers from universities, NCAR, and other government agencies. Deployment decisions for each facility are driven by the scientific merit of the proposed use, the capabilities of a specific facility to carry out the proposed observations, and availability of the facility for the requested time period.
Learn more about the NSF Facilities and Services available to the research community here (pdf 715kb). If you have specific questions about any of the Facilities, contact the managing scientist listed below.
Research Aircraft
- NSF/NCAR GV: Dr. Al Cooper
303.497.1600 - NSF/NCAR C-130: Dr. Jeff Stith
303.497.1032 - Wyoming King Air/Wyoming Cloud Radar Dr. Al Rodi
307.766.4945 - NRL P-3: Dr. Wen-Chau Lee
303.497.8814
Remote Sensing
- NSF/NCAR S-Pol: Dr. Jothiram Vivekanandan
303.497.8402 - CSU CHILL Radar: Dr. Steven Rutledge
970-491-8283
In-situ Sensing
- NSF/NCAR ISFS: Dr. Tom Horst
303.497.8838 - NSF/NCAR ISS (MISS): Dr. Bill Brown
303.497.8774 - NSF/NCAR GAUS (MGAUS): Dr. Bill Brown
303.497.8774 - NSF/NCAR Dropsonde: Terry Hock
303.497.8767 - Driftsonde: Terry Hock
303.497.8767
Requesting Observing Facilities and other Services
In addition to NSF Observing Facilities, EOL provides cost effective, comprehensive and scalable project management support services to the NSF-supported scientific research community and others. To begin this process, contact Brigitte Baeuerle at 303.497.2061.
- If you are new to the process and wish to learn more about it before contacting anyone, read our step-by-step guide here.
- If you have been through the process before and know what forms you need, you can access them here.
Observing Facility Assessment Panel (OFAP)
The pinnacle of the request process is the OFAP, an NCAR-driven community process that
provides technical and operational assessment of facility requests in
the field. The panel, which is composed of a diverse pool of scientists
with broad-based experience in observational studies of earth system
sciences, meets bi-annually at NCAR to provide valuable feedback and
evaluation to facility managers and the user community concerning
experiment design, data management issues and the appropriate and
efficient use of NSF resources as related to a specific field campaign.
- Current OFAP members
- OFAP meeting material (requires login)
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