About

The ARM program plan undergoes U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) peer review.

Approved and funded, ARM forms a multi-laboratory/multi-institution team. Scientific workshops take place in the spring and summer.

The first instrumentation is deployed at the first ARM site, the Southern Great Plains (SGP). Today, the SGP is the largest atmospheric research field site in the world (55,000 acres, 30-plus instrument clusters).

The first field research campaign occurs at the SGP. Any ARM field campaign is called an intensive operational period (IOP).

The SGP is considered fully instrumented, including the installation of millimeter cloud radar and Raman lidar.

The first Tropical Western Pacific (TWP) site opens on Manus Island in northern Papua New Guinea.

In July, a new ARM fixed site is dedicated in Barrow, Alaska, called the North Slope of Alaska (NSA).

In the fall, the biggest field campaign so far was conducted at the SGP. The “Mega IOP,” sponsored by all four of the ARM scientific working groups, integrated six concurrent IOPs.

An ARM Tropical Western Pacific (TWP) facility opens on Nauru Island, an island nation in the central Pacific.

An ARM fixed-location facility opens in Darwin, Australia. This concluded ARM’s first build-out phase for fixed sites—though by 2005 the first ARM Mobile Facility (AMF) would be deployed.

A new ARM Science Plan is adopted. ARM sites are designated as a DOE Science User Facility. The ARM User Facility is now tasked to serve an international science community.

The first ARM Mobile Facility (AMF1) is deployed at the Point Reyes National Seashore near San Francisco, California. An AMF is equipped with a very similar suite of instruments as a remote fixed-location site like the NSA or TWP. The AMF concept soon broadens the field-research landscape; research campaigns increasingly move from fixed sites to under observed areas worldwide.

ARM had always funded aircraft for IOPs, but this year it acquires a formalized aerial component, which is soon called the ARM Aerial Facility (AAF).

The first international deployment of an AMF takes place in Niamey, Niger.

To solicit scientific community opinion, a workshop is held on ARM, the needs of atmospheric science, and the need for a second mobile facility. The workshop also identified key areas for future measurements, including the Azores, Greenland, South Asia, the Amazon, and the Southern Ocean.

Funds from the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act will help significantly improve ARM’s measurement capabilities. By 2010, instruments are added for measuring cloud, aerosol, and precipitation properties and for measuring surface radiative and heat fluxes.

The ARM science component merges with DOE’s Atmospheric Science Program to become Atmospheric System Research (ASR). That boosts research interest in the role of aerosols in atmospheric processes.

The second ARM Mobile Facility (AMF2) is deployed to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, for a five-month field campaign.

ARM opens the Eastern North Atlantic (ENA), a fixed-location observatory on Graciosa Island in the Azores, where an AMF was deployed in 2009–2010.

A third AMF is deployed at Oliktok Point, Alaska. The location’s restricted airspace allows for deploying tethered balloon systems and unmanned aerial systems for gathering climate data.

Operations cease at the TWP after 18 data-rich years.

The User Executive Committee is a constituent group that serves as the official voice of the user community in its interactions with ARM management.

The charter for the ARM Aerosol Measurement Science Group is published in January 2015. This constituent group provides expertise on measurements and processes to best meet the aerosol science objectives of ARM, the ASR program, and the broader atmospheric research community.

The Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) ARM Symbiotic Simulation and Observation (LASSO) pilot project starts in April 2015. LASSO enhances ARM observations by using LES modeling to provide context and a self-consistent representation of the atmosphere surrounding an ARM site. Initially, LASSO focused on shallow clouds at the SGP.

Chronicling ARM’s first two decades, the ARM monograph is an online document written by ARM veterans and published by the American Meteorological Society.

UAS and TBS activities start in June 2016 at Oliktok Point, Alaska.

After going to Argentina for its final field campaign, the G-1 aircraft is retired.

The charter for the ARM Cloud and Precipitation Measurements and Science Group is published in March 2019. This group brings together members of the ARM instrument operations, engineering, and translator teams with the ARM science community to improve the performance and science impact of ARM’s measurements of clouds and precipitation.

The first ARM TBS deployment at the SGP takes place in April 2019. This is the first time an ARM TBS is deployed outside Oliktok Point, Alaska.

The ARM Aerial Facility (AAF) ArcticShark uncrewed aerial system (UAS) flights over SGP take place for the first time in July 2022.