The ARM Climate Research Facility received a dose of southern exposure last year.
A story on the ARM West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE) was featured in The Antarctic Sun, an online publication that is part of the U.S. Antarctic Program and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
AWARE was a collaboration between the NSF and the U.S. Department of Energy, which funds the ARM Facility. The 14-month campaign concluded in January 2017.
Until AWARE, automatic weather stations provided the only meteorological information on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) for about 40 years. More detailed data have been needed to gain a better understanding of rapid changes in the West Antarctic region, which have resulted in the collapse of Antarctic ice shelves.
Data collection took place at McMurdo Station and WAIS, sites hundreds of miles apart. The second ARM Mobile Facility, equipped with an Aerosol Observing System, cloud radars, and high spectral resolution lidar, was deployed at McMurdo Station from January 2016 to January 2017.
“This kind of instrumentation has never been sent to Antarctica before,” AWARE lead scientist Dan Lubin told the Sun. “There’s never been this concentration of instruments providing a synergy for atmospheric science.”
# # #
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.