About

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) User Facility is a multi-laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) scientific user facility and a key contributor to national and international atmospheric research efforts.

ARM provides researchers with strategically located atmospheric observatories and data to advance basic science questions for understanding the Earth’s atmosphere. ARM data are being used to improve the representation of clouds, aerosols, and their interactions with Earth’s radiant energy in earth system models.

Mission

ARM, a DOE Office of Science user facility managed by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, provides the research community with strategically located atmospheric observatories to improve the understanding and representation in earth system models of clouds and aerosols and their interactions with the Earth’s surface.

Vision

To provide the research community with the best array of field observations and supporting state-of-the-art data analytics to significantly improve the representation of challenging atmospheric processes in earth system models.

Atmospheric Data Collection

ARM data are currently collected from three atmospheric observatories—Southern Great Plains, North Slope of Alaska, and Eastern North Atlantic—that represent the broad range of environmental and atmospheric conditions around the world, as well as from the three ARM mobile facilities and ARM aerial facilities. Data from these atmospheric observatories, as well as from past research campaigns and the former Tropical Western Pacific observatory, are available at no charge through the ARM Data Center via Data Discovery.

ARM Leadership & Organization

Nine DOE national laboratories share the responsibility of managing and operating ARM. Along with these laboratories, several constituent groups help provide scientific guidance and develop ARM priorities. ARM also collaborates with many national and international partners in gathering and sharing data.

Facility Documents

ARM leadership guides the direction of ARM and tracks progress through publication of the facility management plan and Decadal Vision reports. Further, operational documents such as workshop reports, and field campaign science plans and final reports, provide ARM with specific guidance to meet user needs. Technical reports describe how ARM data products are created and ARM scientific instruments are used. These are important documents that share how ARM operates.

Future Directions

ARM is continually changing in response to evolving science, user needs, and available technology. Through community engagement, ARM in 2020 developed a new Decadal Vision document to address increasingly complex science challenges related to the facility’s mission over the next five to 10 years.

History

ARM has provided the world’s atmospheric scientists with continuous observations of cloud and aerosol properties and their impacts on the Earth’s energy balance for more than 30 years.