ARM and the Recovery Act

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Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science received $1.2 billion, with $60 million allocated to the ARM Climate Research Facility. With these funds, ARM will purchase and deploy dual-frequency scanning cloud radars to all the ARM sites, enhance several sites with precipitation radars and energy flux measurement capabilities, and invest in new aerosol sampling and aerial instrumentation. This is just a small sample of the planned enhancements that will result in 143 new instruments and increased research capabilities for the ARM user community.

Please check below for updates on our progress as we work toward these improvements throughout the user facility.

Progress and News

February 2010
A preliminary design review for the High-Spectral Resolution Lidar was successfully conducted; other tasks are on track. Contracts are now in place for 100% of our instrument procurements for the full $60M funding allocation, and 36 instrument systems have been received to date.
January 2010
Contracts have been placed for 98 percent of ARM's instrument procurements, with 27 instrument systems received. A number of critical design reviews were successfully completed: upgrades to ARM's Data Management Facility; MMCR Signal Processing Upgrades and Scanning Cloud Radar (ProSensing); and X-band Scanning ARM Precipitation Radars (Radtec). In addition, preliminary design reviews were completed for the C-band Scanning ARM Precipitation Radars (ARC) and the Shipborne Radar Wind Profiler (DeTect).

Many of the computing and networking components for the Data Archive have been received; installation and integration of equipment continues. Aircraft infrastructure, data systems and instrument systems are being received and integration tasks are proceeding.

December 2009
This ARM feature article highlights the completion of successful preliminary design reviews held in November for an influx of new radars planned for deployment throughout the user facility. Kevin Widener, leader of ARM's radar group, led the reviews and provides some context about the importance of this key milestone in the Recovery Act deployment plan for the radars.

Also, Argonne National Laboratory published an article about the Recovery Act investments in ARM and their role in the overall effort. Their portion ($4.6 million) is primarily to provide infrastructure support for the cloud and precipitation radars that will be deployed at the ARM Southern Great Plains site, and the collection, processing, and dissemination of data from all the ARM sites.

November 2009
A press release issued on November 12 by Communication and Power Industries describes their contracts for $4.8 million in Recovery Act funds from ARM that will provide key components for six new multi-frequency cloud radar systems. These radars are used for fundamental research on the effects of clouds and precipitation on climate.
October 2009
A guest article about the Southern Great Plains site, written by site scientist Peter Lamb, appeared in News Oklahoma on October 25. The article describes the evolution of the site into the world's largest atmospheric observatory and mentions the coming enhancements from $12 million in Recovery Act funds.

Meanwhile, successful preliminary design reviews were successfully completed for a new solar spectrometer and for Data Management Facility infrastructure upgrades.

September 2009
A press release from Sandia National Laboratories describes $5 million in enhancements coming to ARM sites in Barrow, Alaska; Darwin, Australia; and Oklahoma. The release features Mark Ivey, site manager for ARM North Slope of Alaska locale, and his colleague Jeff Goldsmith at Sandia/California.
August 2009
Remaining 10 percent of funds released from DOE to PNNL. Designs for aerosol observing systems are progressing well.
July 2009
All specifications, sole source justifications, requests for information, and statements of work are complete. Request for proposals for all major items of equipment have been issued and inter-laboratory contracts are in process, with three out of five complete. Procurement and development activities are on track.
June 2009
Site survey in Barrow, Alaska for possible locations for new radars and radio-acoustic sounding system.
May 2009
Initial funds released from DOE to PNNL. Project execution begins.