The mission of the Beltsville Center for Climate System Observation (BCCSO) is to lead a transformation in atmospheric research and education by inspiring traditionally underrepresented groups:

Create Leaders
Educate the Next Generation of Scientists
Establish a World Class Atmospheric Research Facility
The BCCSO consists of a multidisciplinary group of Howard University faculty in close partnership with NASA/GSFC Earth Sciences Division, other academic institutions and government laboratories and private sector partners.

The overall mission of this new NASA University Research Center (URC) is to:

Engage in basic research with the view that the resulting knowledge will improve weather, climate, and air quality prediction through intensive and long-term atmospheric field observations
Train science and academic leaders (minority Ph.D.s) with emphasis on understanding atmospheric processes through the use of state-of-the-art atmospheric observing systems and analytical methods
Inspire and engage K-12 and undergraduate students through sustainable outreach programs
Contribute to national and international climate research programs and networks designed to investigate the causes of climate and regional environmental change through reference observations of key state variables

Producing scientific leaders and experts requires an advance graduate program that engages students in research on the vanguard of the discipline. To that end, Howard University has assembled a cadre of talented faculty who are already making significant contributions, for example, in their leadership of international field experiments in West Africa to study the genesis of tropical storms. They have fostered productive research collaborations with NASA scientists. The Water Vapor Variability Satellite/Sondes (WAVES) field experiment that was conducted at the Howard University Beltsville Campus between 2006 and 2008 is one such example. WAVES accomplished important science for NASA in terms of AURA and AIRS ground validation (as evidenced by the resulting publications) while engaging numerous graduate and undergraduate students.