2015 Annual Report

• Main Authors: Goss, Hanna, Jundt, Rolanda
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: north slope; Alaska
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1498729; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1498729

For more than 20 years, the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility has blazed the trail in providing the world’s atmospheric scientists with continuous observations of cloud and aerosol properties and their impacts on Earth’s energy balance. The result is an unprecedented data set that has proved invaluable for understanding the atmosphere and improving the predictive capabilities of earth system models. Over the past year, plans have been put in place to create a powerful new capability for furthering ARM’s mission and achieving the vision outlined in the Decadal Vision, the strategy for the ARM Facility for the next 5 to 10 years. The result is a significant reconfiguration for the ARM Facility that will provide more complete data sets to support process studies and model development. The combined observational and modeling elements will enable a new level of scientific inquiry. To achieve the next-generation ARM Facility, plans underway include the following: Establishing observation “megasites” at the Southern Great Plains and North Slope of Alaska sites Enhancing ARM measurement excellence to support U.S. Department of Energy climate science research Producing routine high-resolution model simulations over domains coincident with ARM sites Developing data products and software tools that facilitate analysis and enable the evaluation of models using ARM data Strengthening interactions with the broader atmospheric science and modeling communities. Changes being implemented at the megasites will provide additional spatial sampling of atmospheric and surface information to support a new ARM capability—the routine operation of high-resolution process models at ARM sites. The result will be even more comprehensive scientific data and the processes and tools for scientists to more easily use ARM data for climate model development.