Research Directions and Keywords under the Secondary Application Codes of the Atmospheric Sciences Discipline of the National Natural Science Foundation of China: D0515 Applied Meteorology

Since 2019, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) has strongly promoted the reform of NSFC for the new era. Under this background, the atmospheric sciences discipline in the department of earth sciences has taken the lead role in optimizing the funding system and adjusting its application code; and has approved a new funding layout across the three major categories, namely, “sub-disciplines, supporting technologies and social development services,” which consist of 15 secondary application codes. The discipline of atmospheric sciences has organized experts to systematically investigate the research directions and to update the keywords under each secondary application code. Applied meteorology is one of the second application codes (D0515). The main research directions in applied meteorology include (1) Weather modification; (2) Agroforestry meteorology; (3) Hydrometeorology; (4) Resource meteorology; (5) Traffic meteorology; and (6) Other applied meteorological directions. To serve the applicants, this study illustrates the evolution of the secondary application code for applied meteorology and introduces the keywords under the major research directions. This study also examines the use of these keywords in research frontiers and project applications. Moreover, the applicants’ main affiliations are analyzed alongside issues related to the selection of keywords and attributes of scientific problems during the application of the secondary application code D5015. Through the above sorting and interpretation, we can help fund applicants choose appropriate application codes and keywords, and improve the efficiency of intelligent assistant assignment of fund applications.