New ARM Best Estimate Data Available for 4 ARM Sites

Published: 26 February 2025

The top figure shows relative humidity scaled, by total column amount from MWR, from sounding in height coordinate (%), from EPCAPE. The x-axis is labeled as calendar day in 2023 from 95 through 175. The y-axis represents height from 0 to 15 kilometers. The bottom figure shows surface precipitation from EPCAPE for the same time period in 2023. The precipitation rate is from 0 to 0.7 mm/hour. — ARMBEATM relative humidity (top) and surface precipitation (bottom) are shown for April through June 2023 during the EPCAPE campaign in La Jolla, California. Images were generated by Yuying Zhang, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) User Facility provides tailored datastreams known as ARM Best Estimate (ARMBE) data products for use in the evaluation of global earth system models.

The ARM Best Estimate Atmospheric Measurements (ARMBEATM) product contains basic atmospheric quantities, and ARM Best Estimate Cloud Radiation (ARMBECLDRAD) provides cloud and radiation quantities.

ARMBEATM and ARMBECLDRAD data are now available for the Eastern Pacific Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment (EPCAPE), which ran from February 15, 2023, to February 14, 2024, in La Jolla, California.

In addition, ARMBEATM and ARMBECLDRAD data for ARM’s Southern Great Plains, North Slope of Alaska, and Eastern North Atlantic atmospheric observatories have been extended to cover the years 2021 through 2023.

An ARMBE product assembles quantities that are both well observed by ARM over many years and are often used in model evaluation into one data set. These products consist of hourly averages and thus have temporal resolution comparable to a typical resolution used in earth system model output.

The top plot is labeled "CloudFraction (%) ARMBE," and the bottom plot is labeled "Cloud detection (color) and cloud base (white)" with the datastream name epcarsclkazr1kolliasM1.c0. — ARMBECLDRAD cloud fraction (top) on August 1, 2023, at the EPCAPE ARM Mobile Facility site is derived from the Ka-Band ARM Zenith Radar Active Remote Sensing of Clouds (KAZRARSCL) data product (bottom).

Find more information about ARMBE data products on the ARMBE web page and Xie et al. (2010).

Scientists can use the new ARMBEATM and ARMBECLDRAD data sets now. Access them in the ARM Data Center. (To download the data, first create an ARM account.)

Feedback on the data is always welcome. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact product developer Yuying Zhang or ARM translator Shaocheng Xie.

To cite the data, use doi:10.5439/1333748 for ARMBEATM and doi:10.5439/1333228 for ARMBECLDRAD.

Reference: Xie S, RB McCoy, SA Klein, RT Cederwall, WJ Wiscombe, EE Clothiaux, KL Gaustad, J Golaz, S Hall, MP Jensen, KL Johnson, Y Lin, CN Long, JH Mather, RA McCord, SA McFarlane, G Palanisamy, Y Shi, and DD Turner. 2010. “ARM Climate Modeling Best Estimate Data – A new data product for climate studies.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 91(1), https://doi.org/10.1175/2009bams2891.1

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ARM is a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by nine DOE national laboratories.