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Researchers Look to Origins of New Particle Formation
First user-driven ArcticShark campaign takes flight in Oklahoma In the complex dance of atmospheric processes affecting Earth’s energy balance, new particle formation (NPF) is emerging as a center-stage performer—one that helps determine, on a global scale, how clouds absorb and reflect solar radiation. While some aerosols found in the atmosphere are emitted directly as particles…
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Launch Event Celebrates Start of CAPE-k in Tasmania
In April 2024, U.S. and Australian researchers, science officials, and dignitaries gathered in Tasmania to formally launch the Cloud And Precipitation Experiment at kennaook (CAPE-k). The CAPE-k field campaign will collect data for 17 months on cloud and precipitation properties over the Southern Ocean, which has a large influence on global climate. Representatives from the…
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Aerosol Optical Depth Best Estimate Production Data Available for 2 ARM Sites
Aerosol Optical Depth Best Estimate 5-Channel (AODBE5CH) production data are now available for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility’s Eastern North Atlantic (ENA) and Southern Great Plains (SGP) atmospheric observatories. Scientists can use the AODBE5CH value-added product (VAP) to analyze the variability of aerosol loading over multiple time scales and to demonstrate the importance…
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3-Dimensional Cloud Positions Produced for TRACER Campaign
The Point Cloud of Cloud Points value-added product (PCCP VAP) is now available for the 2021–2022 TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER) in the Houston, Texas, area. PCCP enables three-dimensional (3D) representations related to macrophysical cloud features such as cloud-base and cloud-top heights, structure of cloud boundaries, and cloud-level horizontal velocities. PCCP data are retrieved…
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Tethered Balloon System Merged Data Now In Production
The Tethered Balloon System Merged value-added product (TBSMERGED VAP) and the in-cloud version of the merged product (TBSMERGEDINCLOUD) have moved from evaluation to production. Both VAPs make it easier to access and use measurements from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility’s TBS flights. TBSMERGED combines data from TBS instruments and ground-based ceilometers, allowing for…
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CAPE-k Gets Underway
For 17 months, a field campaign in Tasmania will collect unprecedented data on Southern Ocean aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions ARM begins its latest data-gathering mission, the Cloud And Precipitation Experiment at kennaook (CAPE-k). Video is courtesy of Tom Day, Hamelmann Communications. Imagine this. Date, place, mission. April 15, 2024. Wind blows across a barren peninsula called kennaook…
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Jay Mace: Scientist of Clouds, Painter of Landscapes
For one Utah researcher, a childhood admiration for nature, by way of the U.S. Navy, evolved into a career studying Earth’s atmosphere During his boyhood in northeastern Ohio, Gerald “Jay” Mace had two dreams. One was to have a career that brought him close to nature. In those days, long hikes in the woods always…
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Southern Great Plains Observatory Collects New Set of Solar Eclipse Data
ARM now has measurements from 2017 and 2024 eclipses In a span of less than seven years, the contiguous United States has gotten to witness two total solar eclipses. The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility has collected data from both. The first of those eclipses took place August 21, 2017, with 89% coverage over…
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ARM Data Help Scientists Challenge Perceptions of the Link Between Clouds and Land
Eos magazine highlights recent research that questions the previous conventional understanding of how clouds form and engage with the Earth’s surface The planetary boundary layer (PBL), the bottom layer of the atmosphere, is highly influenced by the Earth’s surface. Factors such as topography, surface cover, and heat rising from the ground all contribute to complex…
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From the User Executive Committee (UEC) Subgroup Chairs: April 2024
Editor’s note: Members of ARM’s User Executive Committee (UEC) participate in subgroups that aim to help broaden community outreach. In a four-part series of blogs, each subgroup chair during the 2023–2024 UEC term will introduce their subgroup, share their subgroup’s ideas and recommendations to ARM, and ways in which the ARM community can engage with subgroup…