Abstract. We investigate the long time behavior of the following efficient second order in time scheme for the 2D Navier-Stokes equation in a periodic box:The scheme is a combination of a 2nd order in time backward-differentiation (BDF) and a special explicit Adams-Bashforth treatment of the advection term. Therefore only a linear constant coefficient Poisson type problem needs to be solved at each time step. We prove uniform in time bounds on this scheme inL 2 ,Ḣ 1 per andḢ 2 per provided that the time-step is sufficiently small. These time uniform estimates further lead to the convergence of long time statistics (stationary statistical properties) of the scheme to that of the NSE itself at vanishing time-step. Fully discrete schemes with either Galerkin Fourier or collocation Fourier spectral method are also discussed.Key words. Navier-Stokes equations, invariant measures, long time statistical properties, second order in time scheme, long time global stability AMS subject classifications. . If the the long time statistics of the system, i.e., the climate, is the subject of study, we then need to investigate the invariant measures of the system since it is the invariant measure (or stationary statistical solutions) that describes the long time statistics of the underlying dynamical system. Since most of these chaotic and/or turbulent systems are not amenable to analytical techniques at the present and in the near future, the issue of the development of numerical methods that are able to capture the long time statistics becomes very important. Higher order efficient schemes are apparently preferred due to the long time integration needed.In this paper, we will focus on the development and analysis of an efficient second order two step numerical method that is able to capture the long time statistics for the following two dimensional Navier-Stokes system for homogeneous incompressible Newtonian fluids in the vorticity-streamfunction formulation (see for instance [36])