Features

Expanding Horizons for Climate Research
Jan 31, 2012
In 2012, the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility begins outfitting two new remote climate observation sites at opposite ends of the climate spectrum—one in the harsh arctic environs of Oliktok Point, Alaska, and the other in the mild marine climate of the Azores, in the North Atlantic Ocean. Scientists will use measurements from the new observation sites to study the interactions between clouds and aerosols in these remote regions and how they impact the planet.

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The World’s Largest Radar Laboratory
Dec 08, 2011
In the past year, the Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility deployed 18 new scanning radars at its research sites in Oklahoma, Alaska, and the tropical western Pacific. Today at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, Gerald “Jay” Mace, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Utah, discusses the research implications of these radars during a press conference on new weather and climate technology. Throughout the week, numerous other researchers presented preliminary results using data collected from the new radars.

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User Facility Highlights at AGU 2011 Fall Meeting
Dec 01, 2011
At this year’s American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, ARM’s scientific users are presenting dozens of oral and poster sessions describing their research using data from the user facility. DOE's Climate and Environmental Sciences Division will host a Town Hall Meeting Tuesday, December 6, seeking community input for the Green Ocean Amazon 2014 campaign.

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New Study Reveals and Quantifies Magnitude of Long-term Aerosol Effects on Clouds and Precipitation
Nov 14, 2011
A study published in Nature Geoscience this week reveals a trend that atmospheric scientists have been mulling for decades: the effects of aerosols on clouds and rainfall. The findings, based on a 10-year data set of ground-based measurements from the ARM Southern Great Plains site in Oklahoma, corroborate an analysis of NASA global satellite products. Matching results were obtained from simulations by a cloud-resolving model.

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Aloha! Mobile Facility to Sail the Pacific; Southern Great Plains Hosts Aerosol and Carbon Campaigns
Oct 31, 2011
The Department of Energy recently announced the selection of new field campaigns that will take place from 2012 through 2013. They include an investigation of marine cloud processes between California and Hawaii using the ARM Mobile Facility onboard the Horizon Spirit cargo ship and aerosol and carbon studies at ARM's Southern Great Plains site in Oklahoma.

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AMIE, What You Wanna Do?
Oct 03, 2011
Starting October 1, the ARM Mobile Facility began obtaining measurements from the sky above Gan Island, part of the Addu Atoll in the Maldives. Combined with continuous measurements from ARM's permanent site on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, data collected during AMIE will help scientists analyze the atmospheric phenomena that drive the Madden Julian Oscillation and improve the way this information is used in climate models.

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Pass the lotion; new study shows drying trend over Great Plains
Sep 28, 2011
Analysis of infrared energy levels useful for similar evaluations at local scale In a study published this month in the Journal of Climate, researchers found less infrared energy reaching Earth’s surface above the Great Plains region of the United States. This decrease in infrared energy is due to a decrease in the amount of water [...]

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Storm Study in Oklahoma Records Extreme Weather Events
Jun 28, 2011
Late spring weather in the Midwest generated some of the most severe weather ever recorded in the state of Oklahoma and produced a variety of convective cloud conditions to be captured by the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment, or MC3E, at the ARM Southern Great Plains site.

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U.S. Department of Energy Kicks Off Scientific Collaboration with India
Jun 10, 2011
Representing the first collaboration on a long-term environmental field study in India, this week the ARM Mobile Facility began operating at the ARIES Observatory in Nainital, India, for the nine-month Ganges Valley Aerosol Experiment, or GVAX.

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Mobile Facility Anchors U.S.-India Collaboration for Cloud-Aerosol Studies
Jun 10, 2011
The past few decades have seen rapid increases in economic activity in many Asian countries. This is particularly true in countries like India, where new cement factories, steel mills, and power plants fuel the growing economy. As their economies grow, these countries face similar environmental problems encountered by the developed countries of the west and Japan. [...]

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