The National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) is a global leader in atmospheric science and, through our research and innovation, we address many of the biggest questions relating to our environment and rapidly changing world. 

Our work brings together expertise from across scientific disciplines, spanning all scales from quantifying chemical reactions in laboratories to global pollution, from detecting the smallest cloud droplets to weather systems, and from local weather impacts to modelling global environmental change.

Our five year Research and Innovation Strategy (2021-2026) identifies the priorities for our cutting-edge research. It sets out how we think ambitiously in response to scientific challenges and identifies the areas in which we will inform and influence solutions that assist business, policy makers and society with tackling many of the biggest environmental issues of our time. 

Our goal is to make discoveries that push the frontiers of current knowledge, developing our understanding of the atmosphere and the environment for the benefit of everyone.

Our research and innovation will provide the UK with new and continued capability to build resilience to climate change, develop clean air, and provide early-warning systems for high-impact weather. 

Our strategy directly addresses priorities set out in the NCAS Strategy 2020-2025 and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) delivery plan. Our work will also help to realise ambitions set out in wider national strategies such as the UK Research and Development Roadmap, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Corporate Plan, the 25 year Environment Plan, UK Innovation Strategy and Clean Growth Strategy. Internationally, our work will contribute to the scientific evidence required to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the goals of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Paris Agreement.

We recognise and celebrate the fundamental importance of partnerships in almost every aspect of our research and innovation work. Long-term partners include UK universities that host our staff and facilities, other NERC Centres, the Met Office and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). International partners are frequently essential collaborators in our research programmes. We also work closely with government departments and businesses to ensure that our science helps to deliver beneficial outcomes for society. As science and policy agendas continue to evolve we actively seek to develop new multi-disciplinary partnerships that are essential to delivering effective solutions to many environmental challenges.

Our strategy describes our broad ambitions for the next five years, and more specific near-term goals. Our near-term goals will naturally be updated as we advance. Over the last 15 years, we have grown in our role as a UK research centre and established ourselves within the global community. The next five years of research and innovation in atmospheric science are critical, as we collectively address many pressing challenges facing the planet’s future and people today.

Our research and innovation priorities focus on maintaining world-class capabilities, and advancing research in three major interconnected areas of atmospheric science. Thus our strategy is organised around five priority areas:

These priorities are fundamental to our ability to lead and support research and innovation in the wider UK research community, and internationally. 

In each of the five priority areas this strategy identifies long-term ambitions, with a focus on the next five years, and near term goals, with a focus on the next one to two years.

Five overarching objectives will guide our research and innovation activities over the next five years. These objectives address especially our corporate goals to Discover, Collaborate and Create Impact:

1. Deliver internationally leading research in atmospheric science and related fields. 

2. Ensure we maintain our world-class research capabilities, meeting the evolving needs of the Natural Environment Research Council, UK Research and Innovation, and the wider UK research community. 

3. Expand our role in the development and delivery of solutions to the environmental challenges faced by government, businesses and society. 

4. Enhance our international leadership roles in research, innovation and impact. 

5. Build sustainable strategic partnerships to support and enable the achievement of our objectives. 

Underpinning support for scientific research activities is provided through a range of NCAS services and facilities. This section describes the research activities which are needed to maintain those services at a level needed to support the ambitions of the NCAS scientific programme. 

NCAS supports long-term measurement activities which generate datasets used by both the NCAS scientific programme and the wider community. 

In most cases, these contribute to national and international measurement networks, with the data being provided to a variety of international databases. They inform NCAS advice to the UK Government in areas such as Air Pollution, Climate Change and High Impact Weather. 

We undertake long term measurements where a) there is clear scientific need; b) the science is important in a wider context and c) we have a unique capability. 

To enhance our long-term measurement capabilities, we develop improved software and calibration methods for analysing atmospheric radar and airborne particle probes, new technologies for lidar remote sensing, and analytic tools for model assessment. These activities benefit the wider community and keep the UK internationally competitive.

NCAS also generates fundamental physico-chemical data and supports cutting edge measurement science. In Air Pollution, we develop the core science represented in the Master Chemical Mechanism (MCM), a constantly-updated model of more than 12,000 gas phase chemical reactions, that is the gold standard measure of atmospheric chemistry performance across the world. The experimental data validates and supports a parallel activity developing theoretical descriptions of gases and aerosols used in the development of pollution and climate models.

Key priorities in measurement science are: i) the validation of ab initio, mechanistic and experimental approaches that generate reaction schemes and parameters for the next generation of air pollution and global models, ii) experimental evaluation of the emissions, properties and life-cycles of atmospheric aerosols and clouds under a range of physical and chemical atmospheric conditions, (iii) the development of new techniques for the traceable calibration of NCAS and UK community gas and aerosol instruments and sensors, (iv) support for new numerical and methodological tools for atmospheric aerosol and cloud observations, including new methods for data analysis from lidar and cloud probes.

The science of weather, air pollution and climate involves acquiring, generating, and exploiting vast amounts of data. New and improved observing systems are used to generate data which are used throughout the NCAS science programme, alongside the complex simulation systems necessary for integrating observations, generating understanding, and for delivering understanding about possible futures.

Data volumes and velocity are increasing rapidly. Miniaturisation results in more sensors and higher data rates. Increasing compute supports the simulation of more processes with higher fidelity. 

These developments bring challenges in managing and exploiting data and developing new codes which efficiently exploit new forms of computing. Addressing these challenges is crucial to integrating the new advances into “Digital Twins of the Environment” suitable for exploring interventions in environmental systems and policies across a range of possible futures. 

Air pollution is a multi-faceted problem that impacts on people, ecosystems and food production and is the largest cause of global preventable death. 

Air pollution impacts are global in reach affecting countries across the full spectrum of development. Whilst air pollution causes harm to all, disproportionately large health impacts are often experienced by the poorest in society. Reducing the effects of air pollution requires knowledge of the emissions of pollutants, their chemical transformations, the dispersion of pollution in the atmosphere and how pollution interacts with both people and ecosystems. 

Delivering significant co-benefits from greenhouse gas reduction and net zero policies and air quality management strategies is a key interdisciplinary science and technological challenge. 

To advance air pollution science and solutions that deliver health and ecosystem benefits, we need to address the following research challenges:

High impact weather (HIW) events are those that have substantial socio-economic impacts, such as storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts. Assessing and predicting the risks associated with high impact weather is essential, so that society can mitigate impacts and adapt to a changing climate. For example:

These urgent national and international needs are likely to become even higher priorities for policy makers and businesses over the next decade. Specific priorities for NCAS are: (i) Cyclonic storms (extratropical cyclones and mesocyclones, tropical cyclones and tropical-extratropical transitions) which produce extreme winds, heavy rainfall and coastal flooding; (ii) Convective storms which produce flash flooding, damaging winds, hail and lightning. These storms occur on scales of 10 km for individual thunderstorms to hundreds of km for mesoscale complexes. (iii) Persistent high impact weather events including cold events, heat waves, droughts and persistent rainfall leading to large-scale flooding. (iv) Large-scale modes of variability such as the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation), ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) and the MJO (Madden-Julian Oscillation). These modes of variability are one of the primary drivers modulating HIW events and hence risk; they also govern the predictability of HIW on sub-seasonal, seasonal and climate time scales.

Major research questions include: What processes are central to the development, persistence and decay of these phenomena? How predictable are they at lead times from hours to decades? To what extent do large-scale modes of variability modulate HIW? How is climate change affecting HIW and large-scale modes of variability, and how will it do so in future? 

In addition to advancing the fundamental science in this area NCAS will work with partners to develop solutions that deliver a productive, healthy and resilient environment. 

Human activities are today the biggest driver of changes in global climate and atmospheric composition. The ongoing global temperature rise and associated changes in weather and climate are directly impacting – and will continue to impact – livelihoods, societies and economies worldwide, as well as creating serious threats to biodiversity and ecosystems. 

In the 2015 Paris Agreement of the UNFCCC, global leaders agreed on an ambitious target to curb global heating, aiming to limit it to a rise of 2°C. There is an urgent need for robust scientific evidence to support the policies and actions required to achieve this mitigation ambition, whilst at the same time adapting to the changes that are already unfolding and amplifying, and improving capacity to anticipate future changes that are as yet poorly understood.  

Specific challenges for research include:

● Quantifying, explaining and predicting long-term changes in atmospheric composition in the context of changing climate and air quality. This includes: exploring stratospheric ozone recovery trajectories; assessing the oxidising capacity of the troposphere and effect on ozone and methane; and reducing the large uncertainties about how natural and anthropogenic aerosols affect climate.

●   Quantifying, explaining and predicting long-term changes in global climate. This includes: finding tighter constraints on Earth’s energy budget; understanding and quantifying the roles of natural (e.g. solar, volcanic) and anthropogenic forcing factors; and understanding the two-way interactions between climate and composition, including quantifying the ongoing changes in global carbon and other biogeochemical cycles.

●  Quantifying, explaining and predicting long-term changes in regional climates. This includes understanding: the dynamics and natural variability of climate on decadal-to-centennial timescales; how patterns of circulation in the atmosphere and ocean are responding to climate change and how they may change in future; and the effect of atmospheric circulation change on regional climates and the water cycle. Priority regions for NCAS are: the North Atlantic and Europe; the Arctic; Africa; and South and East Asia.

● Addressing specific policy priorities, including: quantifying allowable carbon budgets for key policy targets (e.g. limiting global warming to 2°C); assessing potential climate intervention strategies (e.g. land-based strategies); assessing the mitigation potential of non-carbon dioxide (CO₂) Short Lived Climate Forcers (SLCFs) (e.g. methane, aerosols) and potential co-benefits for air quality; investigating the risk of abrupt, potentially irreversible, Earth system change and the opportunities to provide early warning of such changes.

Many societal challenges cut across one or more of our research themes. For example, changes in persistent weather patterns, such as blocking, will impact air quality. Similarly, the technological approaches adopted to deliver a zero carbon economy will also impact atmospheric composition and air quality with a variety of further, and as yet unexplored, consequences.  

A key atmospheric science challenge for the future is to understand with more certainty how specific adaptations to climate change, or actions to improve air quality may impact on addressing existing inequalities and inequities in impact on specific populations.  

To address such challenges effectively we must build collaborations across different areas of expertise within NCAS and also with other disciplines spanning the breadth of UK Research and Innovation. We will seek to develop these collaborations with a focus on the impact of our science – targeting the key knowledge gaps that are most important for informing policy and decision making to protect people and the environment. 

The NCAS Board owns ultimate responsibility for the management, monitoring and evaluation of the science and innovation programme, supported with input and advice from NCAS Theme Leaders, the Heads of Facilities and other key disciplinary experts in NCAS. 

The management of our science programme will be agile and responsive to changing needs and opportunities and will be structured to allow change and adaptation to our research goals and the redeployment of resources and capability when needed.

The development of stretching research objectives in each area will be guided both by academic inputs and through regular dialogue with key external stakeholders. The programme leads will report on progress towards short and medium term goals to the Board, and to NERC, and will strive to create a streamlined process of reporting and monitoring that avoids duplication of effort, and that provides helpful and actionable feedback. 

We will use a mixture of internal and external expertise for the evaluation of research and innovation outcomes, drawing on the NCAS Science Strategy Board, our external advisory group, and advice received from external processes such as the NERC Centre evaluation.  

Over the next five years, we will work with our partners to help society rise to the challenges ahead. To discuss the implementation of our strategy or how you might be involved, contact us.