PNNL

Abstract

Industry advances have greatly reduced the cost and size of ground-based shortwave (SW) sensors for the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared spectral ranges, while simultaneously increasing their ruggedness, reliability and calibration accuracy. These sensors and collocated meteorological equipment are an important part of the US Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) User Facility, which has supported parallel integrated measurements of atmospheric and surface properties for more than two decades at fixed and mobile sites around the world. The versatile capability of these ground-based measurements includes: (1) rich spectral information required for retrieving cloud and aerosol microphysical properties, such as cloud phase, cloud particle size, and aerosol size distributions, and (2) high temporal resolution needed for capturing fast evolution of cloud microphysical properties in response to rapid changes in meteorological conditions. Here we describe unique datasets provided by ARM and highlight several recent results obtained under challenging observational conditions with a focus on improving and validating parameterizations of complex radiative, cloud, and aerosol processes.