HR: 0800h
AN: OS21A-04    [Abstracts]
TI: An ARM Mobile Facility Designed for Marine Deployments
AU: * Wiscombe, W J
EM: Warren.J.Wiscombe@nasa.gov
AF: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Bldg. 490-D, Upton, NY 11973-5000, United States
AB: The U.S. Dept. of Energy's ARM (Atmospheric Radiation Measurements) Program is designing a Mobile Facility exclusively for marine deployments. This marine facility is patterned after ARM's land Mobile Facility, which had its inaugural deployment at Point Reyes, California, in 2005, followed by deployments to Niger in 2006 and Germany in 2007 (ongoing), and a planned deployment to China in 2008. These facilities are primarily intended for the study of clouds, radiation, aerosols, and surface processes with a goal to include these processes accurately in climate models. They are preferably embedded within larger field campaigns which provide context. They carry extensive instrumentation (in several large containers) including: cloud radar, lidar, microwave radiometers, infrared spectrometers, broadband and narrowband radiometers, sonde-launching facilities, extensive surface aerosol measurements, sky imagers, and surface latent and sensible heat flux devices. ARM's Mobile Facilities are designed for 6-10 month deployments in order to capture climatically-relevant datasets. They are available to any scientist, U.S. or international, who wishes to submit a proposal during the annual Spring call. The marine facility will be adapted to, and ruggedized for, the harsh marine environment and will add a scanning two-frequency radar, a boundary-layer wind profiler, a shortwave spectrometer, and aerosol instrumentation adapted to typical marine aerosols like sea salt. Plans also include the use of roving small UAVs, automated small boats, and undersea autonomous vehicles in order to address the point-to-area-average problem which is so crucial for informing climate models. Initial deployments are planned for small islands in climatically- interesting cloud regimes, followed by deployments on oceanic platforms (like decommissioned oil rigs and the quasi-permanent platform of this session's title) and eventually on large ships like car carriers plying routine routes.
UR: http:www.arm.gov/sites/amf.stm
DE: 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801, 4906)
DE: 0321 Cloud/radiation interaction
DE: 0360 Radiation: transmission and scattering
DE: 0394 Instruments and techniques
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly