The National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) is a component of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), set up in 2002 to provide the UK with national capability in atmospheric science research and technology.

We receive a budget of £9M per year from NERC to carry out our research and support programmes.

NCAS is one of NERC's established collaborative centres.  Being "established" means that NERC recognises the enduring need for a centre to underpin its research and support in atmospheric science. Being a "collaborative centre" means that NERC does not own NCAS; instead NERC has entered into a collaboration with a consortium of UK universities and other organisations, and these deliver NCAS under contract from NERC.

NCAS is also a distributed centre.  Being "distributed" means that the 130 NCAS staff are not based in one building. Instead they work in, and are employed by, 19 different organisations across the UK. These include 15 universities, the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, the European centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts and NERC itself.

Our research programmes focus on the following key scientific challenges:

• Climate change science (including modelling and predictions);

• Atmospheric composition, (including air quality, modelling and predictions);

• Weather, including hazardous weather (e. g. heavy rainfall and flash flooding);

• Technologies e.g. instrumentation and platforms for observing and modelling the atmosphere.

The support programmes we provide to the UK atmospheric science community (known as our Services and Facilities) include a state-of-the-art research aircraft (a BAe-146), an extensive equipment pool comprising instrumentation for ground-based and airborne measurements, computational models and training, data storage and access