Atmospheric Observatories

Three heavily instrumented fixed-location atmospheric observatories that represent a broad range of conditions are operated by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility to gather massive amounts of atmospheric data. These are:

• Southern Great Plains (SGP) – centered near Lamont, Oklahoma, United States
• North Slope of Alaska (NSA) – centered at Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, United States
• Eastern North Atlantic (ENA) – located on Graciosa Island, Azores, Portugal.

In addition to the fixed-location observatories, ARM also offers both mobile and aerial facilities:

• ARM Mobile Facility (AMF): Scientists can propose to use one of three AMF to obtain atmospheric measurements, similar to those at the fixed-location observatories, for periods of about a year at a time in undersampled regions around the world. The third mobile facility is currently being deployed to Bankhead National Forest in Alabama.
• ARM Aerial Facility (AAF): The AAF obtains aerial measurements in the skies above the fixed-location and AMF observatories. The U.S. Department of Energy funded the purchase of a Bombardier Challenger 850 regional jet to expand ARM’s scientific data capabilities. ARM is also developing uncrewed aerial system and tethered balloon system capabilities to address a wide range of science requirements.

Data from past deployments of the AMF and AAF, and the former Tropical Western Pacific (TWP) and Oliktok Point, Alaska, observatories, are a valuable asset to researchers worldwide and are easily accessible from the ARM Data Center through Data Discovery.