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Storm Animations, CACTI-Style
New visualizations turn data into dramatic 3-dimensional images of evolving thunderstorms ARM’s main observatory for the 2018–2019 Cloud, Aerosol, and Complex Terrain Interactions (CACTI) field campaign was between two mountain ridgetops in Argentina. It included the second-generation C-Band Scanning ARM Precipitation Radar (CSAPR2), the bulb-like structure in the center. Its case-study data have been translated…
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For Careful, Comprehensive COMBLE, It’s a Wrap
After six months of collecting data on cold-air outbreaks in northern Norway, elated scientists are ready to wrestle with the data The first ARM Mobile Facility (AMF1), the chief instrument platform during the Cold-Air Outbreaks in the Marine Boundary Layer Experiment (COMBLE), was sited right on the Norwegian Sea. Photo is by David Oaks, ARM.…
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Jerome Fast: Modeler of the Land-Atmosphere Interface
A senior investigator studies the coupling of the Earth’s surface with the lowest layer of the atmosphere, where storms and precipitation are made In March 2020, Jerome Fast pauses at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) during what turned out to be one of the last in-person conferences held for the foreseeable future. Photo is by…
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BAMS: Two More Hits for ARM Data
Improving earth system models is at the heart of a pair of new studies Data from ARM’s Southern Great Plains atmospheric observatory, above, informed some of a metrics and diagnostics package of earth system models outlined in a July 2020 paper. Hot streaks? Not only athletes have them. Institutions do too. A pair of recent…
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ARM Names Two New Aerosol Mentors
A senior research duo at Colorado State University will collect and analyze ice-nucleating particles Colorado State University atmospheric chemist Jessie Creamean calibrates a portable aerosol sampler while aboard the Russian support icebreaker Akademik Fedorov during the 2019–2020 Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition. In 2020, she joined Colorado State University…
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A Coming Report: Aerosols, Front and Center
An advisory group has recommendations for improving atmospheric aerosol sampling, measuring, and data archiving within ARM Allison McComiskey, an aerosol scientist from Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, discusses the importance of studying aerosols. For the past seven months, a small science advisory group has compiled recommendations on how to improve the instruments, measurement strategies,…
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ARM Data Quality Office Celebrates Two Decades of Service
‘It’s all about the data’ From left to right are ARM Data Quality (DQ) Office staff members Ken Kehoe, Randy Peppler, Corey Godine, Alyssa Sockol, and Austin King. Photo is by Emily Summars-Jeffries, University of Oklahoma Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies. For those close to the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility, an unofficial…
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Airborne Program Expert Rickey Petty Nears a Goal Line
The longtime ARM Aerial Facility program manager and die-hard meteorologist prepares for a studious retirement Before the days of pandemic lockdowns, Rickey Petty posed in his Germantown, Maryland, office. He retires at the end of June 2020. Photo is courtesy of Petty. One day in the fall of 1971, a 19-year-old football player at the…
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Clouds and Precipitation: Advice to ARM From Experts
Diversely skilled scientists meet to prepare a report on what ARM needs to observe and model processes vital to Earth’s water and energy cycles Clouds and precipitation present measurement challenges. Here is a seaward view of both, taken from the Norwegian island of Andøya during ARM’s 2019‒2020 Cold-Air Outbreaks in the Marine Boundary Layer Experiment…
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Charting a Course for ARM Aerial Measurements
Scientists gather to provide expertise and direction Jason Tomlinson, director of engineering for the ARM Aerial Facility (AAF), presents during the ARM Aerial Instrumentation Workshop in March 2020 at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Photo is by Andrea Starr, PNNL. While much of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility is firmly rooted on the…