The National Observation and Research Station of Desert Meteorology, Taklimakan Desert of Xinjiang is currently the world's only comprehensive atmospheric science observation and test station located over 200 km deep into the hinterland of a shifting desert. Established in 1996, it was officially incorporated as a National Basic Meteorological Station of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) on January 1, 1999. In 2002, it became the Tazhong Atmospheric Environment Observation and Test Station of the Institute of Desert Meteorology, CMA. It was upgraded to a National Reference Meteorological Station of CMA in 2008, selected as one of CMA’s first batch of Field Science Experiment Bases in 2018, and designated as a National Field Science Observation and Research Station in 2020, formally named the National Observation and Research Station of Desert Meteorology, Taklimakan Desert of Xinjiang.

Focusing on national strategic needs and major scientific challenges, the station aims at the forefront of desert meteorology. It conducts long-term research on desert weather and climate, land-atmosphere interactions in deserts, desert atmospheric physics and environment, and desert detection technology and applications. It strives to become an internationally influential open-field environmental testing and sharing platform. The station’s goals include: studying the evolution patterns and mechanisms of severe weather in the Taklimakan Desert and surrounding regions; establishing monitoring, forecasting indicators, and early warning systems for desert disasters; investigating the impact mechanisms of desert boundary layers on regional circulation and local weather processes; providing characteristic parameters and parameterization schemes for boundary layers and land-surface processes; improving land-surface process models to enhance numerical weather prediction capabilities; exploring emission, transport, and deposition mechanisms of desert dust aerosols and pollutants; identifying key parameters and influencing factors of dust emission processes; advancing the development and integrated application of specialized desert meteorological monitoring instruments; enriching desert meteorological experimental methods; and promoting the application and demonstration of comprehensive detection technologies.

Currently, the station has 29 personnel (24 permanent staff, 2 contract employees, 3 graduate students), including 8 Senior Research Fellows/Professor-level Senior Engineers, 9 Associate Research Fellows/Associate Senior Engineers, 7 Engineers, and 5 Assistant Engineers/other roles. It hosts 21 fixed researchers and 8 visiting researchers. The station has undertaken over 60 funded projects with a total funding of nearly 60 million yuan and published 258 academic papers, including more than 40 SCI/SCIE-indexed articles. Relevant findings have been published in internationally renowned journals such as Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Science Bulletin, Journal of Geophysical Research, and Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, attracting broad academic attention and significantly enhancing the station’s international academic influence. The fully automatic high-precision dust collector, awarded a national invention patent, received the 2018 "WMO Professor Dr. Vilho Väisälä Award for Outstanding Achievement in Instrument Development/Implementation" from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO evaluation committee recognized the instrument for "supporting capacity development in instruments and observation methods for developing countries and contributing to the construction of WMO’s Integrated Global Observing System."