NSF launches National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, managed by UCAR consortium of universities

The National Science Foundation launched the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado in 1960, managed by the newly formed University Corporation for Atmospheric Research — a nonprofit consortium of universities created in 1959 specifically to operate the center. NCAR grew from a 1956 National Academy of Sciences committee recommendation that found American meteorology severely underfunded and lacking the computational and observational resources needed to advance weather prediction. The center operated under a cooperative agreement between NSF and UCAR from its founding.