The ARM-GPM Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E)

The Mid-latitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) is a joint research collaboration between the Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission's Ground Validation Program. The intensive operational period of MC3E is proposed to be conducted during the late spring/early summer of 2011 over the ARM Southern Great Plains Climate Research Facility site in Oklahoma, United States and includes a multi-scale, multi-frequency surface-based remote sensing approach complemented by aircraft-based observations of precipitating cloud systems. The observational strategy will be aimed at improving our understanding of eight specific elements important for the parameterization of convective cloud processes including: 1) Pre-convective environment, 2) convective initiation, 3) updraft/downdraft dynamics, 4) condensate transport/detrainment, 5) precipitation/cloud microphyics, 6) influence on the environment, 7) influence on radiation and 8) large-scale forcing. These observations over land of cloud and precipitation processes (including latent heating) will further be useful for cloud modeling forcing, validation and development, and the construction of precipitation retrieval algorithms for GPM passive microwave and dual-wavelength precipitation radar systems. The ARM Southern Great Plains Climate Research Facility currently includes long-term, continuous, quality-controlled observations of cloud, precipitation, radiation, aerosol and atmospheric state embedded within the Oklahoma Mesonet and National Weather Service WSR-88D radar network. These routine observations will be complemented by a network of X-band scanning radar systems, a large-scale scanning polarized radar system, a NASA dual- polarization precipitation radar and aircraft in situ and remote sensing observations.