PNNL

Abstract

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program (www.arm.gov) is a Department of Energy, Office of Science, climate research user facility that provides atmospheric observations from diverse climatic regimes around the world. Use of ARM data is free and available to anyone through the ARM data archive. ARM is approaching 20 years of operations. In recent years, the facility has grown to add two mobile facilities and an aerial facility to its network of fixed-location sites. Over the past year, ARM has enhanced its observational capabilities with a broad array of new instruments at its fixed and mobile sites and the aerial facility. Instruments include scanning millimeter- and centimeter-wavelength radars; water vapor, cloud/aerosol extinction, and Doppler lidars; a suite of aerosol instruments for measuring optical, physical, and chemical properties; instruments including eddy correlation systems to expand measurements of the surface and boundary layer; and aircraft probes for measuring cloud and aerosol properties. Taking full advantage of these instruments will involve the development of complex data products. This work is underway but will benefit from engagement with the broader scientific community. In this article we will describe the current status of the ARM program with an emphasis on developments over the past eight years since ARM was designated a DOE scientific user facility. We will also describe the new measurement capabilities and provide thoughts for how these new measurements can be used to serve the climate research community with an invitation to the community to engage in the development and use of these data products.