Requestable Lower Atmosphere Observing Facilities

Lower Atmosphere Observing Facilities (LAOF)

Through its Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS) Section, the NSF provides funding for the acquisition, operation, maintenance, and upgrading of several large research platforms and instrumentation to support observational meteorology. AGS supports state-of-the-art instruments and facilities through the Facilities for Atmospheric Research and Education (FARE) Program, including the Lower Atmosphere Observing Facilities (LAOF) and the Community Instruments and Facilities (CIF). Current instrumentation and facilities are available for request under the NSF Facility and Instrumentation Request Process (FIRP) solicitation.

EOL, together with the University of Wyoming (UWyo), maintains and operates the suite of LAOF on behalf of the NSF. 

• Research Aircraft
• Airborne Instrumentation
• Ground-based Systems

Community Instruments and Facilities (CIF)

Please contact individual CIF providers to request their facilities.

Remote Sensing

• UAH MAPNet
• UWI Space Science and Engineering Center Portable Atmospheric Research Center (SPARC)

Radars

• SUNY Millimeter Cloud Radar
• UIUC Flexible Array of Radars and Mesonets (FARM)
• OU Mobile Doppler Radar
• CSU Sea-Going Polarimetric (SEA-POL) radar

Laboratories

• Storm Peak Laboratory
• Michigan Tech Pi Convection-Cloud Chamber
• Clemson University Soot Photometer
• NC State Ice Nucleation Cold Stage