Editor’s note: This is an update from ARM Associate Director for Research Jennifer Comstock, who also oversees ARM science products development and the user facility’s Engineering Review Board.
ARM prioritizes its engineering and development activities each fiscal year (FY) to meet user needs and achieve mission-critical facility goals. In FY2023, priorities focused on improving user-facing and operational tools and metadata, preparing for the Bankhead National Forest (BNF) deployment, and enhancing ARM’s remote-sensing and aerosol measurements as well as its value-added products (VAPs).
A major accomplishment associated with the BNF deployment in Alabama was the design, procurement, and development of instrument systems for a 140-foot walk-up tower that will go up near the main site. Systems will be deployed in FY2024.
Other ARM instrument development activities revolved around expanding aerosol instrumentation at the North Slope of Alaska atmospheric observatory and upgrading existing instrumentation, such as Ka-Band ARM Zenith Radars.
Meanwhile, ARM completed site data system network infrastructure upgrades for the Southern Great Plains (SGP) observatory and second ARM Mobile Facility.
In March, June, and August 2023, the ARM Aerial Facility conducted a successful series of flights over the SGP with the ArcticShark uncrewed aerial system. Atmospheric data collected during the flights are freely available for use. At the end of September, ARM opened a proposal call for FY2024 ArcticShark flights in the SGP region.
In the science products area, ARM continued to focus on developing user-requested VAPs for boundary-layer, aerosol, and precipitation processes, and model evaluation. New VAPs include data sets packaged for comparison with lidar simulators used for model evaluation and cloud optical depth derived from sunphotometer measurements. In addition, ARM’s science translators completed the FY2023 milestone to release ARM’s core VAPs for the TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER).
For reprocessing VAPs, developers started using a new workflow. The main goal of the workflow is to ensure that VAPs are reprocessed when input data change. The new workflow streamlines the process, enabling faster data delivery to users.
ARM’s data services team provided more new resources to users and staff while upgrading existing tools. The team released the first phase of the ARM Data Workbench, an ecosystem for working with ARM data. Scientists also began using ARM’s updated Online Metadata Editor tool to submit guest instrument data from ARM field campaigns and principal investigator products.
To help track the impact of ARM’s instruments and VAPs, the data services team rolled out a new metrics dashboard that provides user and data download statistics. The dashboard also tracks the completeness of ARM datastreams.
What’s Next?
In FY2024, ARM is preparing for the start of mobile facility operations in Alabama, Baltimore, Maryland, and Tasmania while further improving operational tools and processes, continuing data workbench development and data system upgrades, and working on a website refresh.
Meanwhile, ARM is adding one more multiwavelength high-spectral-resolution lidar (HSRL) to its lidar suite. When it is all done, ARM will have upgraded its two existing HSRLs and have one new HSRL.
Data product development is focused on completing VAPs for mobile facility campaigns near Crested Butte, Colorado, and in La Jolla, California; and providing new science products such as aerosol vertical profiles, best estimates for boundary-layer height, new and improved open-Python zenith cloud radar products, and advanced radar wind profiler retrievals.
Many of these activities support ARM’s 2020 Decadal Vision goals while also enhancing the user experience and helping to streamline infrastructure processes.
See the latest list of current and completed ARM priorities.