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The National Center for Atmospheric Research is a cornerstone of America’s weather, climate and space weather enterprise, and an essential asset for Colorado and the country. For more than 60 years, NCAR’s integrated, community‑serving model has enabled scientific breakthroughs that protect lives, enhance emergency planning, strengthen our economy, improve aviation and transportation operations, and support national security.Ìý

ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ strongly urges NSF to preserve NCAR as a unified national center. Fragmenting its capabilities would weaken forecasting, disrupt specialized expertise,Ìýreduce the return on federal investment, and threaten the United States’ position as a global leader in atmospheric and Earth system science.

At the same time, if change is in the best interest of our nation, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ has proposed an alternative path forward: preserving NCAR’s core structure while expanding its national impact through a university‑led consortium initially led by ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Wyoming. This approach builds on decades of successful partnership between NCAR, strategically aligned research universities and federal laboratories, and would accelerate innovation, strengthen workforce development, and expand research‑to‑operations pathways nationwide.

Boulder's high concentration of atmospheric, Earth system, and geophysical research institutions has benefitted communities across the country through critical advances in extreme weather prediction, wildfire and drought science, space weather preparedness, and Earth system modeling. We stand ready to work with NSF, Congress and the research community to ensure NCAR continues serving the nation for decades to come.