A 20-year history of NSF-supported atmospheric science field campaigns: statistics and demographics

Abstract

ver the past two decades, the National Science Foundation?s (NSF) Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS) has funded nearly 200 atmospheric science-related field campaigns that have included deployment of AGS-sponsored observing facilities. These projects have spanned the range from modest, single investigator experiments to massive, multi-investigator, multi-agency campaigns. They have occurred both domestically and abroad, on every continent and over most oceans. In this article, we present an analysis of some of the details about these campaigns, including such elements as deployment location and cost of the campaign, and of statistics related to the principal investigators (for example, type and location of institution, gender, years since degree). In addition, we assess trends in field campaign cost. These results provide a retrospective view of atmospheric science field work that has been supported since 1992.