19 November 2015
Dear Requestor,
What follows is a substantial number of questions related to requesting one or more of the NSF Lower
Atmosphere Observing Facilities (LAOF). There are four parts to the overall request form:
Part I: General Information covers basic information about the PI(s) team, project basics,
funding, and previous LAOF use.
Part II: Operational Considerations and Logistics is especially important if the request is for a
complex, international or multi-agency field campaign as it focuses on project support activities
above and beyond the LAOF support.
Part III: Data Services and Management focuses on overall project data management activities
such as the data management plan, data sources, long-term data archival and the use of the EOL
Field Catalog.
Part IV: Facility Specific Requests is a collection of forms that cover each of the NCAR/EOL
platforms available. Included are the two NSF/NCAR aircraft (C-130, GV), airborne
instrumentation (HCR, AVAPS, HSRL), the S-Pol radar, the Integrated Sounding System, and
the Integrated Surface Flux Facility. Please delete those forms that are not needed.
It is essential that you fill out the questions posed in Part I through Part III to the best of your
knowledge, while the number of forms under Part IV depends on the facilities needed for your project.
Please note that the services listed under Part II and III will require additional NSF program funds, so
their usefulness to the campaign and overall scope should be discussed with your NSF Program
Manager.
If you have further questions, please feel free to contact Brigitte Baeuerle at 303/497-2061 or
baeuerle@ucar.edu.
Updated November 2013
PI - Project - Facility
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PI - Project - Facility
REQUEST FOR NCAR/EOL SUPPORT
PROJECT ACRONYM
SPRING 2016 OFAP MEETING
Submitted on day month year
By [PI Name]
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PI - Project - Facility
PART I: GENERAL INFORMATION
CORRESPONDING PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Name
Institution
Phone/Email
Co-Investigator(s) and Affiliation(s)
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Project Title & Acronym
Project Location
Date of Field Deployment Phase
NSF Facilities requested
FUNDING
NSF Program Officer Name
NSF Proposal Number
Proposal Status
Is this
a NSF CAREER Proposal?
How many additional science proposals will
your co-investigators submit to NSF to
participate in this campaign?
Do you expect other, non-NSF support?
If yes, from whom?
In preparation () / submitted () / funded ()
PUBLICATIONS RESULTING FROM PREVIOUS LAOF SUPPORT
Please list your publications that resulted from previous use of LAOF
Project Name LAOF used Publication Citation
& Year
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Digital Object
Identifier
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PI - Project - Facility
ABSTRACT OF PROPOSED PROJECT
Please attach the one-page summary of your NSF/agency proposal
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PI - Project - Facility
EXPERIMENT DESIGN
Please provide details about the experiment design. How will the instruments/platforms
requested be used to address scientific objectives and hypotheses?
If this is a resubmission of a facility request, please provide a short summary of what major
changes were implemented since the last request?
If this is a second year request for continuation of a program, please provide a summary or
highlights describing the results of the first field phase.
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Science Traceability Matrix
Science Goal
Updated November 2013
Science Objective
Requirements
Scientific Measurement Requirements
Observable/Parameter Project
Instrument and
to be measured
Requirements
instrument
performance
needed
PI - Project - Facility
EDUCATION AND OUTREACH ACTIVITIES
Please describe your planned E&O activities. List the anticipated number of graduate and
undergraduate students who will be involved directly and in a meaningful way in field work
and/or data analysis related to this project. Please also describe any planned outreach activities
for K-12 and the public.
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PI - Project - Facility
PART II – OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS & LOGISTICS
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PI - Project - Facility
PROJECT PLANNING AND COORDINATION
Do you require a dedicated EOL Project Manager/Coordinator assigned to your project?
Do you require assistance with various project coordination activities (e.g., monthly
teleconferences, planning meetings, workshops)?
Do you require help with the preparation of a Project Operations Plan?
Will you conduct a project “Dry Run” before the actual field campaign?
What other facilities/platforms outside the EOL suite will be deployed? Are any of them nonUS facilities?
Are complex inter-facility or inter-agency permissions required for flight operations and/or other
facility operations that are not routinely handled by EOL project management?
Is there a need for integrated diplomatic arrangements? (e.g., customs, immigration, scientific
research permit, focal point with local hosts/governments)
Do you require assistance with Air Traffic Control coordination for non-NSF/NCAR aircraft?
If this is an aircraft project, does the payload include transmitting lasers (lidars) that are non-eye
safe?
Do you require assistance with permits and leases for non-LAOF instrumentation?
What kind of weather or other forecasting requirements do you have and how are these handled?
Do you require assistance with coordinating and facilitating additional education and outreach
activities? If yes, what activities do you have in mind?
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PI - Project - Facility
OPERATIONS SUPPORT AND COORDINATION
How many participants will be involved in the field campaign (not including EOL staff) and
where will they be located?
Will there more than one project operations base?
If there are multiple instrumentation and/or operations sites, what kind of operational
coordination is needed?
Will a Data Analysis Center1 suffice or do you need a Project Operations Center?
What kind of communications capabilities do you require for the project?
Will you require wet lab space, general lab space and/or storage space?
LOGISTICS
Will you be shipping hazardous/radioactive material?
Will you be shipping consumables/expendables that will incur customs duties?
Is there a need for coordinated shipping of instrumentation, supplies etc.? (Especially if this is a
foreign deployment)
Is there a need for the coordination of lodging or transportation? (Especially if this is a foreign
deployment)
Is there a need for a Site Manager at the deployment location?
1
A “Data Analysis Center” includes an EOL data storage server, group internet access, printer, a meeting room and collaborative
work space. Staffing typically includes a System Administrator for the first 1-2 weeks to help get the computing infrastructure and the
PI group’s laptops connected to the network. A full “Project Operations Center” typically includes the computing infrastructure and
meeting rooms as above, plus a full-time project operations coordinator, a systems administrator, and a field catalog software
engineer. EOL staff will be available to lead the daily planning meetings, and ground staff will be available to help with aircraft
coordination in the case of operations in adverse weather conditions.
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PI - Project - Facility
PART III: DATA SERVICES AND DATA MANAGEMENT
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PI - Project - Facility
EOL FIELD CATALOG
Is an EOL Field Catalog2 needed to facilitate information gathering, reporting and management?
Do you need a Situational Real-Time Display Tool (e.g., Mission Coordinator Display) to
actively monitor and direct operations?
DATA MANAGEMENT PLAN, ARCHIVE AND DATA COLLECTION
Please attach the proposed data management plan from your NSF/agency proposal
Do you intend to request restricted data access? 3
What arrangements have been made for a comprehensive long-term project data archive,
including the management and distribution of data from non-EOL platforms? Do you need EOL to
provide such an archive?
2
Examples of EOL Field Catalog can be found at catalog.eol.ucar.edu
Please note that EOL policy (www.eol.ucar.edu/content/data-policy) will make all EOL data publicly available once the
data are quality controlled, typically in less than 6 months after project completion. If a PI wants to have exclusive access to
these data for the first year, s/he has to officially request such a restriction from the EOL Director (grubisic@ucar.edu) no
later than eight weeks prior to the start of an experiment. The burden will fall on the requesting PI to request the restriction
and to monitor data distribution and access to the data once the restrictions are in place.
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3
PI - Project - Facility
What standard operational data products and datasets do you want EOL to collect? Standard
operational data products and datasets are those routinely available from various data sources.
What custom data products and datasets do you want EOL to collect? Custom data products and
datasets are those that require special arrangements, permissions and/or are not freely available.
What data analysis products and datasets will you and/or your Co-PIs provide during the
deployment? Data analysis products and datasets include those from user instrumentation,
preliminary data plots etc.
Do you plan on moving/transmitting a large amount of data back to your home institution during
the deployment? Please provide a volume estimate.
Beyond the requested EOL datasets, will you need additional data that are provided by other
investigators but are not part of the project archive?
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