ARM Data Developers Prepare for Next Generation of ARM

 
Published: 18 August 2015
Around 40 ARM staff attended the 2015 Data Developer's Meeting at the National Weather Center in Oklahoma to discuss current activities and the reconfiguration of ARM sites.
Around 40 ARM staff attended the 2015 Data Developer’s Meeting at the National Weather Center in Oklahoma to discuss current activities and the reconfiguration of ARM sites.

About 40 ARM staff members gathered at the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma, from July 14 to 16 for the ARM Climate Research Facility’s Annual Developers Meeting to discuss current activities and help facilitate a reconfiguration to better streamline ARM operations and enhance its scientific impact. Participants included representatives from ARM’s External Data Center, Data Quality Office, Data Archive, and Data Management Facility who met with infrastructure management, operations staff, and scientists.

ARM Technical Director Jim Mather gave a program overview and talked about the
Decadal Vision, which calls for a multi-phase effort to consolidate ARM sites and instrumentation to provide more robust scientific data and the processes to more easily incorporate them into climate models. Morning sessions included Tom Boden, Oakridge National Laboratory, presenting the recent activities from the Architecture and Services Strategy Team (ASST), which is developing a strategy for the ARM computing environment to support the ARM reconfiguration, increased data volumes, and integration of observations and modeling.

Bill Gustafson, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, introduced the Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) ARM Symbiotic Simulation and Observation, or LASSO, modeling project. By increasing the density and spatial coverage of measurement capabilities, ARM is effectively moving from a vertical column of measurements to multi-dimensional measurements that give us a 4-dimensional view of the atmosphere in a defined space. These data will form the basis of the LES modeling, which will in turn be used to better understand gaps where measurements are not possible. These high-resolution model simulations will be run on a routine basis and will create a powerful new capability for furthering ARM’s mission.

Shaocheng Xie, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, presented possible ARM tools to support global climate model development, and Jimmy Voyles, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Giri Palanisamy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, discussed ways to improve ARM internal program communications.

Some of the key topics discussed during individual breakout sessions included:

  • NextGen ARM, which focused on new tools and technologies needed to support the next generation of ARM
  • An upcoming redesign of ARM’s website
  • Updates to the Data Discovery Tool that will make ARM data more visible to ARM data users
  • Real-time data distribution, such as providing visualization of data on site and a mechanism for mentors to look at data when they are visiting a site
  • Data center resources, including current and future computing capabilities
  • Data visualization and communicating data quality.

The information shared and action items developed during the course of these meetings are integral to ARM’s mission and continued success as a premier scientific user facility. More updates will be made available as ARM’s reconfiguration progresses.

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The ARM Climate Research Facility is a national scientific user facility funded through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The ARM Facility is operated by nine Department of Energy national laboratories.