ARM

Category: Feature Stories and Releases

  • Caring for CARES: A California Air Study Keeps Spinning a Web of Research

    During June of 2010, a lot of people cared about the Carbonaceous Aerosols and Radiative Effects Study (CARES), a 26-day investigation of the composition, evolution, and fate of aerosols in an air transport region where both natural and urban emissions mix.

  • BAMS Article Reports on a Data-Rich ARM/NASA Storm Clouds Campaign

    Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment to be published in upcoming edition Convective clouds distribute water, heat, and momentum throughout the lowest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, where weather happens. They get their name from the convective motion prompted when the surface of the Earth heats up, causing air to become buoyant and rise into the…

  • Smoke From African Fires: Studying its Impact on Low Clouds

    Over a thousand miles off the coast of Angola in West Africa in the South Atlantic Ocean, Ascension Island will be ground zero for the newest field campaign by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility—Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds (LASIC).

  • 25 Years of ARM Shows Benefits of Having Heads in the Clouds

    .alignright, .alignleft { clear:none; } How ARM transformed the culture of atmospheric science This is the first article in a series about the first 25 years of the ARM Climate Research Facility. A monograph published online this spring by the American Meteorological Society tells the history—25 years of it so far—of what is now called…

  • The Truth About Shallow Clouds: Science Goes Airborne in Oklahoma

    Starting in late April, and then again in August, researchers will conduct two separate month-long periods of intensive observation at ARM’s Southern Great Plains megasite to gather detailed measurements of processes affecting the life cycle of shallow cumulus clouds for the Holistic Interactions of Shallow Clouds, Aerosols, and Land-Ecosystems, or HI-SCALE, in an aerial campaign.

  • “Change Is in the Air” as Scientists Evaluate Data Collection with Unmanned Aircraft

    For decades, studying Earth’s atmosphere meant gathering data with instruments based on land, lofted by balloons, or flown overhead in various types of aircraft, but change is “in the air” as increasingly popular unmanned aerial systems (UASs), such as lightweight miniature airplanes, prove useful for automating data collection. In April, the Evaluating Routine Atmospheric Sounding…

  • Scientists Left with “Wealth of Information” as Green Ocean Amazon Campaign Closes

    Data help reveal urban impacts on the Amazon’s pristine atmosphere, precipitation, and cloud formation Green Ocean Amazon, GoAmazon, extended through the wet and dry seasons from January 2014 through December 2015, before packing activities began. Slogging through mud, Amon Haruta and Vagner Castro shielded sensitive climate instruments from the torrential rain. Working with colleagues in…

  • Next-Generation Aerosol Observing System Prepares to Deploy to Alaska

    Portable laboratory will gather critical Arctic climate data Scott Smith, an ARM research engineer, shows off the new Aerosol Observing System to ARM Technical Director Jim Mather, Southern Great Plains Facility Manager Nicki Hickmon—where the facility will be tested before it is deployed to Alaska—and Aerosol Measurement Science Group Co-chair Allison McComiskey. To build accurate…

  • Tracking Clouds Down Under

    While penguins and seals are the main inhabitants of Macquarie Island, a remote grassy outcrop which lies about half-way between New Zealand and Antarctica, they will soon be joined by a suite of instruments from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. These instruments will measure surface radiative fluxes…

  • MAGIC Continues to Inspire Insights

    Because they cover so much of the Earth and reflect large amounts of sunlight, marine clouds play an especially critical role in climate and climate research. However, most non-satellite investigations of such clouds have been relatively short-term (~one month) in fairly small regions. The Marine ARM GPCI Investigation of Clouds (MAGIC) field campaign changed that…