ARM Facilities Newsletter

This month the authors will visit an ARM CART site with a pleasant climate: the Tropical Western Pacific (TWP) CART site, along the equator in the western Pacific Ocean. The TWP locale lies between 10 degrees North latitude and 10 degrees South latitude and extends from Indonesia east-ward beyond the international date line. This area was selected because it is in and around the Pacific warm pool, the area of warm sea-surface temperatures that determine El Nino/La Nina episodes. The warm pool also adds heat and moisture to the atmosphere and thus fuels cloud formation. Understanding the way tropical clouds and water vapor affect the solar radiation budget is a focus of the ARM Program. The two current island-based CART sites in the TWP are in Manus Province in Papua New Guinea and on Nauru Island

ARM Facilities Newsletter

This newsletter contains two articles. The first is about problems at the 60-ft. instrument tower at Okmulgee State Park. Wasps have taken up residency at the tower which has hampered maintenance work there. The second article describes the cloud layer experiment at the Oklahoma site

ARM Facilities Newsletter

This newletter begins a discussion on Lightning--Natures's light show. This issue explains what lightning is. Fortunately, lightning strikes on ARM's instruments occurs infrequently. Next month's issue will explain lightning safety and how ARM has dealt with lightning safety

Site scientific mission plan for the Southern Great Plains CART Site, July--December 1999

The Southern Great Plains (SGP) Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site was designed to help satify the data needs of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program science team. The site scientific mission plan defines the scientific priorities for site activities during the 6-month period beginning 1 July 1999, and looks forward in lesser detail to subsequent 6-month periods. The primary purpose of this document is to provide scientific guidance for the development of plans for site operations. It also provides information on current plans to the ARM functional teams and serves to disseminate the plans more generally within the ARM program and among the members of the science team. This document includes a description of the operational status of the site and the primary site activities envisioned, together with information concerning approved and proposed intensive observation periods (IOPs). This plan is a living document that is updated and reissued every six months as the observational facilities are developed, tested, and augmented and as priorities are adjusted in response to developments in scientific planning and understanding

Long-term Atmospheric Mercury Wet Deposition at Underhill, Vermont

Section 112(m) of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, referred to as the Great Waters Program, mandated an assessment of atmospheric deposition of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) to Lake Champlain. Mercury (Hg) was listed as a priority HAP and has continued to be a high priority for a number of national and international programs. An assessment of the magnitude and seasonal variation of atmospheric Hg levels and deposition in the Lake Champlain basin was initiated in December 1992 which included event precipitation collection, as well as collection of vapor and particle phase Hg in ambient air. Sampling was performed at the Proctor Maple Research Center in Underhill Center, VT. The range in the annual volume-weighted mean concentration for Hg in precipitation was 7.8–10.5 ng/l for the 11-year sampling period and the average amount of Hg deposited with each precipitation event was 0.10 μg/m 2 . The average amount of Hg deposited through precipitation each year from 1993 to 2003 was 9.7 μg/m 2 /yr. A seasonal pattern for Hg in precipitation is clearly evident, with increased Hg concentrations and deposition observed during spring and summer months. While a clear trend in the 11-year event deposition record at Underhill was not observed, a significant decrease in the event max-to-monthly ratio was observed suggesting that a major source influence was controlled over time. Discrete precipitation events were responsible for significant fractions of the monthly and annual loading of Hg to the forested ecosystem in Vermont. Monthly-averaged temperatures were found to be moderately correlated with monthly volume-weighted mean Hg concentrations ( r 2 =0.61) and Hg deposition ( r 2 =0.67) recorded at the Vermont site. Meteorological analysis indicated the highest levels of Hg in precipitation were associated with regional transport from the west, southwest, and south during the warmer months.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44444/1/10646_2004_Article_6260.pd

ARM Facilities Newsletter

The subject of this newsletter is the ARM unmanned aerospace vehicle program. The ARM Program's focus is on climate research, specifically research related to solar radiation and its interaction with clouds. The SGP CART site contains highly sophisticated surface instrumentation, but even these instruments cannot gather some crucial climate data from high in the atmosphere. The Department of Energy and the Department of Defense joined together to use a high-tech, high-altitude, long-endurance class of unmanned aircraft known as the unmanned aerospace vehicle (UAV). A UAV is a small, lightweight airplane that is controlled remotely from the ground. A pilot sits in a ground-based cockpit and flies the aircraft as if he were actually on board. The UAV can also fly completely on its own through the use of preprogrammed computer flight routines. The ARM UAV is fitted with payload instruments developed to make highly accurate measurements of atmospheric flux, radiance, and clouds. Using a UAV is beneficial to climate research in many ways. The UAV puts the instrumentation within the environment being studied and gives scientists direct measurements, in contrast to indirect measurements from satellites orbiting high above Earth. The data collected by UAVs can be used to verify and calibrate measurements and calculated values from satellites, therefore making satellite data more useful and valuable to researchers

ARM Facilities Newsletter

With the end of summer drawing near, the fall songbird migration season will soon begin. Scientists with the ARM Program will be able to observe the onset of the migration season as interference in the radar wind profiler (RWP) data. An RWP measures vertical profiles of wind and temperature directly above the radar from approximately 300 feet to 3 miles above the ground. The RWP accomplishes this by sending a pulse of electromagnetic energy skyward. Under normal conditions, the energy is scattered by targets in the atmosphere. Targets generally consist of atmospheric irregularities such as variations in temperature, humidity, and pressure over relatively short distances. During the spring and fall bird migration seasons, RWP beam signals are susceptible to overflying birds. The radar beams do not harm the birds, but the birds' presence hampers data collection by providing false targets to reflect the RWP beam, introducing errors into the data. Because of the wavelength of the molar beam, the number of individuals, and the small size of songbirds' bodies (compared to the larger geese or hawks), songbirds are quite likely to be sampled by the radar. Migrating birds usually fly with the prevailing wind, making their travel easier. As a result, winds from the south are ''enhanced'' or overestimated in the spring as the migrating birds travel northward, and winds from the north are overestimated in the fall as birds make their way south. This fact is easily confirmed by comparison of RWP wind data to wind data gathered by weather balloons, which are not affected by birds

ARM Facilities Newsletter

This issue continues the discussion on lightning begun with the last issue. It reviews briefly what lightning is, then discusses protecting buildings and structures, personal protection, and protecting ARM structures. Five sources for more information are listed

Site scientific mission plan for the Southern Great Plains CART site: July--December 1997

The Southern Great Plains (SGP) Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site is designed to help satisfy the data needs of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program Science Team. This document defines the scientific priorities for site activities during the six months beginning on July 1, 1997, and looks forward in lesser detail to subsequent six-month periods. The primary purpose of this Site Scientific Mission Plan is to provide guidance for the development of plans for site operations. It also provides information on current plans to the ARM functional teams and serves to disseminate the plans more generally within the ARM Program and among the members of the Science Team. This document includes a description of the operational status of the site and the primary site activities envisioned, together with information concerning approved and proposed intensive observation periods (IOPs). This plan is a living document that is updated and reissued every six months as the observational facilities are developed, tested, and augmented and as priorities are adjusted in response to developments in scientific planning and understanding

Site scientific mission plan for the Southern Great Plains CART site January--June 1996

The Southern Great Plains (SGP) Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site is designed to help satisfy the data needs of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program Science Team. This document defines the scientific priorities for site activities during the six months beginning on January 1, 1996, and looks forward in lesser detail to subsequent six-month periods. The primary purpose of this Site Scientific Mission Plan is to provide guidance for the development of plans for site operations. It also provides information on current plans to the ARM functional teams (Management Team, Data and Science Integration Team [DSIT], Operations Team, instrument Team [IT], and Campaign Team) and serves to disseminate the plans more generally within the ARM Program and among the members of the Science Team. This document includes a description of the operational status of the site and the primary site activities envisioned, together with information concerning approved and proposed Intensive Observation Periods (IOPs). The primary users of this document are the site operator, the Site Scientist Team (SST), the Science Team through the ARM Program science director, the ARM Program Experiment Center, and the aforementioned ARM program functional teams. This plan is a living document that is updated and reissued every six months as the observational facilities are developed, tested, and augmented and as priorities are adjusted in response to developments in scientific planning and understanding