Members of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility’s science team are major contributors to radiation and cloud research. Scientists and investigators using ARM publish about 150 peer-reviewed journal articles per year, and ARM data are used in many studies published by other scientific organizations. These documented research efforts represent tangible evidence of ARM’s contribution to advances in almost all areas of atmospheric radiation and cloud research.
Research Highlights
Recent Highlights
Air pollution unable to intensify storms via warm-phase invigoration
13 January 2023
Romps, David
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud-Aerosol-Precipitation Interactions
Of the mechanisms proposed for how aerosols might invigorate storms, the observational evidence on supersaturation makes the warm-phase mechanism unlikely. An actively debated hypothesis is that air pollution from human activities regularly makes storms around the world more intense. In the "warm-phase invigoration mechanism," extra particles of air pollution (aerosols) release [...]

Sizing ice hydrometeors using the dual-wavelength radar ratio
5 January 2023
Matrosov, Sergey
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud Processes
The ice cloud feedback in weather and climate models is strongly affected by the size of cloud particles. The snowflake size information is also important for improving the accuracy of weather radar-based snowfall quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) techniques. Measurements of dual-wavelength radar ratio (DWR, i.e., the ratio of radar reflectivities [...]

Intercomparison of field data from LASIC, CLARIFY, and ORACLES
20 December 2022
Barrett, Paul; Zuidema, Paquita
Supported by:
Research area: Aerosol Properties
Multiple field campaigns took place in the southeast Atlantic over a number of years with the aim of characterising the impact that smoke from fires on the African continent have on modulating the climate system. Using a range of techniques, these projects assessed the physical, chemical, and optical properties of [...]