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NCAS provides a group of supporting facilities to allow UK atmospheric scientists to utilise the latest technologies and techniques.
NCAS Observational Facilities Division
- The Facility for Airborne Measurements (FAAM)
The Facility for Airborne Measurements (FAAM) is the result of a collaboration between the UK Met Office and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The facility has been established as part of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science to provide a state-of-the-art research aircraft for use by all the UK atmospheric research community and their international partners, on science campaigns throughout the world. The research aircraft is a modified BAE-146, owned by BAE Systems and operated by Directflight. FAAM and the aircraft are based at Cranfield University, Bedfordshire.
For further information see the FAAM website.
(Please note that NERC's Natural Airborne Research and Survey Facilities also operate a Dornier-228 research aircraft that complements the FAAM BAe-146. This smaller, twin turbo-propped is also available for use by the UK research community.)
 Facility for Ground based Atmospheric Measurements (FGAM)
The Facility for Ground based Atmospheric Measurements is an NCAS facility consisting of a set of ground-based and specialised airborne instruments designed to make measurements of the physical and chemical features in the atmosphere. These instruments are located in university centres of expertise and are developed and supported by instrument scientists who are experts in the various types of measurement techniques. These instruments are used by the community in research field campaigns. UFAM is closely linked to the NCAS Weather research programme and to the the NCAS Atmospheric Composition research programme.
For further information see the FGAM website.
NCAS Computer and Data Facilities Division
 British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC)
The British Atmospheric Data Centre is the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) designated data centre for the Atmospheric Sciences. The role of the BADC is manage, curate and ensure the long-term integrity of atmospheric data produced by NERC projects and to assist anyone wishing to use the data to locate, access and interpret them (the BADC provides data to an entire community of atmospheric data consumers, not just atmospheric scientists). These data include: observations obtained during field campaigns, operational meteorological observations, numerical model output, Earth observations and re-analysis data. The BADC also distributes observational data on behalf of the UK Met Office and modelled data on behalf of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
For further information see the BADC website.
 NCAS Computational and Modelling Support (CMS)
NCAS coordinates its activities in support of computational science (particularly High Performance Computing - HPC) and modelling within a unit called the Computational Modelling Support (CMS).
CMS enables NCAS to better provide its support for HPC and modelling (including training) across the entire NCAS programme of activities and beyond, into the wider NERC-funded community.
For further information see the CMS website.
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