The research coming out of the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) in 2024 ranged from mesmerizing to potentially life saving. From breathtaking celestial wonders to hurricane research that aims to make society more resilient, here are the highlights of NSF NCAR’s top science stories from the past year.

Scientists at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) are proposing a sensor network called the LOwer Troposphere Observing System (LOTOS). LOTOS aims to improve observations of the troposphere, the lowest region of Earth's atmosphere, by simultaneously sampling the atmosphere horizontally and vertically.

A multi-disciplinary team of researchers aims to make agricultural data more accessible with a mobile app and web-based application called CropSmart. The goal of CropSmart is to revolutionize the way farmers, agribusiness operators, and government agricultural officials make decisions about irrigation strategies, fertilizer applications, and when to harvest.

NSF NCAR scientists have linked together multiple state-of-the-art computer models to create a detailed picture of how conditions in the atmosphere affect the ocean; how the ocean, in turn, affects the growth of phytoplankton and zooplankton; and finally, how the small fish that eat zooplankton (and the bigger fish that eat them) are impacted.

Thomas Hauser has been named director of the Computational & Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).