CELEBRATING
50 YEARS OF ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH IN BOULDER
October 1, 2004 — Fifty years ago this month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower stood at a podium in Boulder, Colo., with the famous Flatirons rock formation in the scenic background. He rose to dedicate a building that was to serve as the new home for an area of science that was expanding after the war — radio waves and their propagation in the atmosphere. This research was important militarily, and in the areas of telecommunications, understanding solar activity and its affects on the Earth, and the dynamics of the upper and lower atmosphere. Thus began a proud history of exploration and discovery in the atmospheric sciences at Boulder facilities and institutions that would eventually evolve into six of the 12 NOAA environmental research laboratories, as well as two of its university partners at the University of Colorado and Colorado State University. It also was the foundation for the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, the local NOAA National Weather Service and the NOAA Mountain Administrative Support Center. History
of the Boulder Labs In the late 1940s and at the beginning of the Cold War, President Truman had declared that new government facilities should not be built within the Washington, D.C., metro area so as not to concentrate so many federal facilities within range of an atomic bomb. As recollected by 85-year-old Alan H. Shapley, a longtime Boulder resident who joined the CRPL in 1947, Congress had appropriated funds for the lab and it was established within the National Bureau of Standards in 1946. (Shapley served as director of the now NOAA Geophysical Data Center in Boulder from 1972 to 1981.) For the new lab's permanent home, however, Shapley said the general consensus was that it should be located near a major university and within commuter plane distance to the District of Columbia for lab scientists and administrators who needed to check in regularly with their bosses. The University of Virginia at Charlottesville was mentioned as a possibility. A
New Home in Boulder, Colo.? Shapley said many of the folks involved in these areas of science (i.e., solar-terrestrial disturbances, high atmospheric dynamics and radio wave propagation studies) lived and were schooled in the eastern United States. The prospect of moving "west of the Hudson (River)," let alone 1,800 miles from the East Coast to "a scientific Siberia," was not regarded as such a grand idea by some, he recalled. Site
Visit Out West Nevertheless, and probably not knowing that a decision had all but been made already, the Boulder Chamber of Commerce and city officials "brought out the heavy-hitters" to lobby the delegation when they arrived in town. A reception was held at Roberts' home near the Flatirons, and all the stops were pulled, Shapley said. The
Appeal of Boulder Eisenhower
Dedication of Department of Commerce Labs in Boulder In 1965, CRPL moved from NBS to join other agencies in the new Environmental Science Services Administration, and in 1970, ESSA became the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This change brought several groups into one agency to provide atmospheric, marine and oceanic services. Another reorganization in 1967 created the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, which became part of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in 1978. On Aug. 23, 1988, the National Bureau of Standards was renamed the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Today, NOAA, NTIA and NIST make up the DOC Boulder campus. Eight years later (1973), in a move to consolidate NOAA’s Boulder entities on the DOC campus site, construction of the David Skaggs Research Center was completed and dedicated on Nov. 20, 1998. Named after the former Boulder Congressman, the David Skaggs Research Center would house over a thousand NOAA employees from the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, NOAA Mountain Administrative Support Center, local NOAA National Weather Service and six of the 12 NOAA Environmental Research Laboratories:
Staff from one of NOAA’s Joint Research Institutes, the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, also work at the David Skaggs Research Center. CIRES is a cooperative institute between NOAA and the University of Colorado. Physically located on the University of Colorado Campus (Boulder, Colo.), this institute focuses on research involving environmental chemistry and biology, atmospheric and climate dynamics, cryospheric and polar processes and the solar-terrestrial environment. It is also important to note that many of the staff working at another NOAA Joint Research Institute, the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (a cooperative institute between NOAA and Colorado State University located in Fort Collins, Colo.), also work in Boulder, Colo. Highlights of NOAA Research laboratories' work in Boulder:
Thanks to
the foresight of the people of Boulder 50 years ago, the DOC Boulder Laboratories
have had a place to advance the intertwined fields of radio and atmospheric
research well beyond what its founders could have ever imagined. In return,
DOC and NOAA scientists have helped to bring international recognition
to the community, and the presence of the labs has helped steer Boulder’s
economic and cultural development. One can only speculate about what will
be achieved in the next 50 years. Relevant
Web Sites Timeline of the Labs in Boulder Boulder Laboratories 50th Anniversary Significant Papers from the First 50 Years of the Boulder Labs Media
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