Supporting the Mission of the ARM user facility, to Advance Atmospheric Science and Model Development, through Collaboration with other Measurement Programs and Individual Investigators

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility is managed and operated by the U.S. Department of Energy (www.arm.gov). ARM includes a network of extensively instrumented atmospheric observatories and aerial measurement platforms that are used to augment these ground-based measurements. There are currently six ground-based ARM observatories, which each operate 24/7 for deployments with durations ranging from about a year (or in unusual cases, a few months) to multiple decades with the ARM site in the US Southern Great Plains approaching 30 years of continuous operations. The mission of the ARM facility is to support atmospheric research toward improved understanding of clouds, aerosols, precipitation, and their interactions and impact on the earth energy balance and the improved representation of associated processes in global climate and numerical weather prediction models. Support of model development occurs both through the direct application of ARM data to modeling activities and indirectly through the work using ARM data to evaluate or improve satellite retrievals. This research focus means that ARM is not considered a monitoring network; however, because of the long-term nature of some ARM deployments, ARM measurements have been used to study atmospheric trends. This type of application is aided by collaboration with several monitoring networks. In addition to long-term measurement collaborations, ARM often hosts guest instruments. ARM observatories provide measurement context and supporting infrastructure that make them useful settings for scientific field campaigns as well as a testbed for new instruments. Looking ahead, ARM has recently published a decadal vision document that explores ways to enhance the science impact of the ARM facility. Elements of the updated vision document include expanded collaboration with measurement networks and use of coordinated intensive operation periods to draw guest instruments to ARM observatories to address specific science issues. This presentation will provide an update on current ARM activities and plans with an emphasis on collaborations and discussion of how these collaborations help advance ARMs research mission.