Anthony recently posted a news article that included the following text
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) scientists from Argonne National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory will begin taking data today for a yearlong mission aimed at improving the representation of clouds in climate models. The study, a collaborative effort between DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program Climate Research Facility and Horizon Lines, marks the first official marine deployment of the second ARM Mobile Facility, AMF2, and is likely the most elaborate climate study ever mounted aboard a commercial vessel
Stephen Richards posted thd following reaction
Why is it in the USA, that every man and his dog in government employ seems to be doing climate research?
Dogs? In government employ? Let us now take time pause and remember Munchkin:
Munchkin used to ‘help’ the scientists at the ARM-CART Southern Great Plains (SGP) site take data. Notice the ARM in there? Same ARM. He’d been left in a field by some cruel person and wandered up to instrument building. The site technician’s fed him and housed him. During one visit to the CART site, my husband Jim saw poor Munchkin was cold. So, I knit Munchkin a sweater.
I admit I don’t know a lot about ARM, but I can comment on a few comments/ questions/ complaints about the project involving a instruments mounted on ships containers:
- The wording of the article made it sound like the ARM project to measure radiative properties of clouds is new. It has existed since at least 1990.
- The wording of the article lead some people to think measurements might be restricted to this one ship moving back and forth across the ocean. That ship is a mobile facility. In fact, measurements are on going in a number of fixed locations. For example, Munchkin ‘worked’ in Oklahoma at the ‘SGP’ site). Other sites I am aware of are in Barrow Alaska, Australia, some island somewhere or another. I know I’ve heard mention of places like “Niger” too but I don’t know if that was ever deployed.
- Someone asked this
Anthony, and others with some clout, please can you contact them and politely but firmly ask them to guarantee to make all unadjusted data available freely, publicly and quickly.
ARM data is available freely, publicly and quickly. I’ve never tried to access it myself, but it is available.
“..In January 2006, the second deployment of the ARM Mobile Facility (AMF) began in Niamey, Niger, West Africa, at the Niger Meteorological Office at Niamey International Airport…”
“..During January to March, the lower atmosphere in Niamey is often laden with dust blown from the Sahara Desert, causing poor visibility. Scientists will use data collected by the ARM Mobile Facility in 2006 to study the effects of Saharan dust and the West African monsoons…”
Looks like these units are designed to be portable and they move them all over the world. Collect data, then moved to another location.
Ed–
Some units are moved around. Others stay in one place for long, long periods.
The “Mobile Facilities” are portable. Munchkin was stationed at the SGP, which is not “mobile”. So, basically, both exist.
They also have intensive operating periods at some of the static site where extra instruments are brought to measure “extra” stuff all in parallel. Generally speaking ‘mobile’ aspects of the program seem to get more news coverage than static aspect. After all– why would someone suddenly write a news article reporting “The SGP. Still here. Still taking radiometer data. Just like last year! And the year before! ” Meanwhile, every mobile campaign during that period might have it’s own press release. It’s the way of things.
The hot, dry, dust-laden “Harmattan” winds that prevail over Niamey in winter are a well-known seasonal phenomenon. What is unclear here is how they relate to the stated purpose of improving the modeling of clouds–which are virtually absent during that season.
sky–
The program is broader. After all, the program is called “Atmospheric Radiation Measurements”, not “Cloud Measurements”.
They want to get measurements of down welling radiation under a broad range of conditions Clouds are generally the major issue, but if a GCM is going to work, you need to have parameterizations work in the limit of no clouds as well as when there are clouds.
Lucia,
Atmospheric backradiation is not simply a matter of cloud-cover. I’ve observed cloudless variations up to 80 W/m^2 depending upon the dustiness of the atmosphere. But that’s not what Anthony’s lead-in avers. One wonders what sort of instrumentation, if any, will be deployed to measure dustiness.
sky–
My husband might know what instruments they use. He doesn’t work on ARM anymore, but he still knows many of the people who do. So, he might know. (He may have an opinion about the instrument too! 🙂 )
Your husband’s input would be helpful.
sky– I know for sure he isn’t going to write a blog post about ARM. He’s not interested in doing that. I can ask him if he knows about what instruments are used to measure dustiness over Niame.
sky–
Jim says he’s not specifically familiar with instruments used in Niamey. But you should be able to find information hunting here:
http://www.arm.gov/
I don’t know if you’ll find what you want easily or with difficulty.
I entered Niamey in the search tool and got loads of results here:
http://google.arm.gov/search?q=Niamey&site=default_collection&btnG=Google+Search&access=p&entqr=0&output=xml_no_dtd&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&client=default_frontend&ud=1&y=0&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&x=0