Engineering topics

Mather, James

Publications and source records attributed to Mather, James.

18 records

DOE OSTI2024

ARM FY2025 Radar Plan

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility is dedicated to delivering high-quality radar data that significantly advance our understanding of cloud and precipitation processes, improving climate models. With radars operating across diverse frequencies, scanning modes, and global climate conditions, extensive staffing is essential for effective management. Due to current staffing constraints, achieving the expected level of operational excellence requires a more strategic approach. To address this challenge, ARM has developed an operational radar plan for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) based on budget and staffing considerations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Special Observing Period (SOP) data for the Year of Polar Prediction site Model Intercomparison Project (YOPPsiteMIP)

The rapid changes occurring in the polar regions require an improved understanding of the processes that are driving these changes. At the same time, increased human activities such as marine navigation, resource exploitation, aviation, commercial fishing, and tourism require reliable and relevant weather information. One of the primary goals of the World Meteorological Organization's Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) project is to improve the accuracy of numerical weather prediction (NWP) at high latitudes. During YOPP, two Canadian “supersites” were commissioned and equipped with new ground-based instruments for enhanced meteorological and system process observations. Additional pre-existing supersites in Canada, the United States, Norway, Finland, and Russia also provided data from ongoing long-term observing programs. These supersites collected a wealth of observations that are well suited to address YOPP objectives. In order to increase data useability and station interoperability, novel Merged Observatory Data Files (MODFs) were created for the seven supersites over two Special Observing Periods (February to March 2018 and July to September 2018). All observations collected at the supersites were compiled into this standardized NetCDF MODF format, simplifying the process of conducting pan-Arctic NWP verification and process evaluation studies. This paper describes the seven Arctic YOPP supersites, their instrumentation, data collection and processing methods, the novel MODF format, and examples of the observations contained therein. MODFs comprise the observational contribution to the model intercomparison effort, termed YOPP site Model Intercomparison Project (YOPPsiteMIP). All YOPPsiteMIP MODFs are publicly accessible via the YOPP Data Portal (Whitehorse: https://doi.org/10.21343/a33e-j150, Huang et al., 2023a; Iqaluit: https://doi.org/10.21343/yrnf-ck57, Huang et al., 2023b; Sodankylä: https://doi.org/10.21343/m16p-pq17, O'Connor, 2023; Utqiagvik: https://doi.org/10.21343/a2dx-nq55, Akish and Morris, 2023c; Tiksi: https://doi.org/10.21343/5bwn-w881, Akish and Morris, 2023b; Ny-Ålesund: https://doi.org/10.21343/y89m-6393, Holt, 2023; and Eureka: https://doi.org/10.21343/r85j-tc61, Akish and Morris, 2023a), which is hosted by MET Norway, with corresponding output from NWP models.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Management Plan

Mission and Vision Statements for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility Mission The ARM Climate Research Facility, a DOE scientific user facility, provides the climate research community with strategically located in situ and remote-sensing observatories designed to improve the understanding and representation, in climate and earth system models, of clouds and aerosols as well as their interactions and coupling with the Earth’s surface. Vision To provide a detailed and accurate description of the Earth atmosphere in diverse climate regimes to resolve the uncertainties in climate and Earth system models toward the development of sustainable solutions for the nation's energy and environmental challenges.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Summary of October 2023 ARM User Executive Committee Meeting

The User Executive Committee (UEC) provides objective, timely feedback to the leadership of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility with respect to the user experience. The UEC held a hybrid meeting at the ARM Southern Great Plains Observatory in October 2023. Four goals were identified for this meeting: (1) to take an in-depth look at the ARM user facility, (2) to provide actionable items to ARM within the context of the UEC subgroups, (3) to develop new user engagement strategies, and (4) to see an ARM facility in operation, providing valuable context for future UEC discussions. The outcomes of the successful meeting are highlighted in this report. The UEC is grateful to ARM for facilitating this in-person meeting and to our gracious hosts at SGP.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2022

ARM FY2023 Radar Plan

The fundamental objective of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility’s radar capability is to provide high-quality radar observations to the scientific user community with an overarching goal of improving the treatment of clouds and precipitation in climate models. ARM has a complement of 32 radars, including scanning and zenith-pointing varieties (Table 1). The effort to maintain and operate these radars is significant and requires a large, distributed staffing commitment. It has not been feasible to ensure the continuous, high-level operations expected by the ARM user community for all radars at all times, so priorities are established to routinely manage select radar operations every fiscal year. These priorities for FY23 are listed herein.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

ARM FY2021 Radar Plan

The fundamental objective of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) radar facility is to provide high-quality radar observations to the scientific user community with an overarching goal of improving the treatment of clouds and precipitation in climate models. ARM has a complement of 32 scanning and zenith pointing radars, not including the radar wind profilers. This large number of radars and deployment locales require an enormous commitment of effort to keep operational. It has been the experience in ARM that all these radars cannot be always operated at a high level, and priorities need to be developed to properly manage operations every fiscal year. This document provides an overview of the FY20 activities and documents the priorities for FY21.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

Progress Towards Goals Outlined in the 2014 Decadal Vision

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility published its first decadal vision document in 2014 (U.S. DOE 2014a). The overarching vision described in that document was to develop an integrated observation-modeling framework to accelerate the application of ARM observations for process studies and model applications.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2019

ARM Radiosondes for Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Validation Field Campaign Report

The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Radiosonde Field Campaign has been a coordinated multi-year effort involving the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility, the University of Wisconsin at Madison (UW-M), and the JPSS project to validate the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) JPSS operational satellite sounding products. In this arrangement, funding for radiosondes has been provided by the JPSS project to ARM. These radiosondes have been launched coincident with JPSS satellite overpasses at ARM field sites, with UW-M personnel coordinating the radiosonde launch schedules. This work has been a fundamental, integral, and costeffective part of both the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (SNPP) and NOAA20 satellite validation efforts and has provided critical accuracy assessments of the temperature and water vapor soundings. It is anticipated that these effort will continue throughout the lifetime of NOAA20. JPSS validation efforts began in July 2012, with radiosonde launches targeting overpasses of the recently launched SNPP satellite from the ARM sites at the North Slope Alaska (NSA), Southern Great Plains (SGP), and Tropical West Pacific (TWP) at Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. Launches at TWP ceased in May 2014, with the closure of the site, and launches began at the Eastern North Atlantic (ENA) site in February 2015. Radiosonde launches targeting SNPP continued through January 2018 and a total of 204/443/482/190 SNPP overpasses were targeted at the ENA/NSA/SGP/TWP sites respectively. More information about the SNPP radiosonde launches is provided in Table 1.

Satellite meteorology, radiosondes, North Slope of↗

DOE OSTI2019

ARM Cloud and Precipitation Measurements and Science Group Charter

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Cloud and Precipitation Measurements and Science Group (CPMSG) brings together members of the ARM instrument operations, engineering, and translator teams with the ARM science community for the purpose of improving the performance and science impact of the ARM measurements of clouds and precipitation. The members of the CPMSG work toward this goal by confronting science needs from the broader research community with operational constraints of the ARM facility. The CPMSG replaces the former radar science and engineering group. The CPMSG will continue to include a significant focus on the application of the ARM radar network; however, the focus of ARM is ultimately not on specific instruments but on providing measurements and associated data products that advance atmospheric science. Providing measurements of cloud properties has always been a core activity for ARM, but increasingly, ARM has striven to couple measurements of cloud properties with precipitation to support the full range of research associated with cloud systems. Radar measurements are often central to cloud and precipitation research but often the retrieval of cloud and precipitation properties requires coupling radar measurements with measurements from other instruments or other instruments may provide information in physical regimes where radars do not do well. Therefore, the CPMSG will address issues related to radar performance and applications but will also consider issues related to other passive and active remote sensors as well as ground-based in situ precipitation measurements. A driving consideration for the group should be how resources can best be applied to measurements of cloud and precipitation properties and the development of associated data products to increase the scientific impact of these measurements.

Charter, Infrastructure Management Board, User Exe↗

DOE OSTI2018

ARM Aerosol Measurement Plan

Over the past decade, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility has been working toward developing a comprehensive (defined here as Tiers I-III in Appendix A) and consistent set of aerosol measurements across each of the ARM ground-based observatories. Along the way, the facility has deployed wide-ranging instruments including some for which ARM has had many years of operating experience and some which represent more cutting-edge capabilities. While there has been a clear motivation for this instrument suite, the adoption of these instruments has not been uniform. The reasons for this vary and include operational challenges, measurement complexity, and alignment with active research.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2018

2017 Annual Report

2017 was a milestone year for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. It marked the 25th anniversary of ARM collecting data at its first site in the Great Plains, 20 years of collecting data in the Arctic, and 10 years of collecting data with the ARM Aerial Facility. ARM successfully underwent its Triennial Review by a panel selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and completed the development and testing of the Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) ARM Symbiotic Simulation and Observation (LASSO) project’s pilot phase, which adds modeling to ARM’s suite of capabilities. All of this exemplifies how ARM continues to support high-impact science—as it has throughout its history. Since a Decadal Vision was set forth in 2014, ARM has focused on helping ensure that the next generation of researchers would have the measurements they need of cloud and aerosol properties and their impacts on Earth’s energy balance to continue to improve the scientific understanding of the atmosphere and the predictive capabilities of earth system models. Fiscal year 2017 was a year of seeing results from the Decadal Vision plan to combine observational and modeling elements.

Southern Great Plains, North Slope of Alaska, East↗

DOE OSTI2018

A Bird’s Eye View: Development of an Operational ARM Unmanned Aerial Capability for Atmospheric Research in Arctic Alaska

Here, we present that unmanned aerial capabilities offer exciting new perspectives on the Arctic atmosphere and the US Department of Energy is working with partners to offer such perspectives to the research community. Thorough understanding of aerosols, clouds, boundary layer structure and radiation is required to improve representation of the Arctic atmosphere in weather forecasting and climate models. To develop such understanding, new perspectives are needed to provide details on the vertical structure and spatial variability of key atmospheric properties, along with information over difficult-to-reach surfaces such as newly-forming sea ice. Over the last three years, the US Department of Energy (DOE) has supported various flight campaigns using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS, also known as UAVs and drones) and tethered balloon systems (TBS) at Oliktok Point, Alaska. These activities have featured in-situ measurements of thermodynamic state, turbulence, radiation, aerosol properties, cloud microphysics and turbulent fluxes to provide a detailed characterization of the lower atmosphere. Alongside a suite of active and passive ground-based sensors and radiosondes deployed by the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program through the third ARM Mobile Facility (AMF-3), these flight activities demonstrate the ability of such platforms to provide critically-needed information. In addition to providing new and unique datasets, lessons learned during initial campaigns have assisted toward the development of an exciting new community resource.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2017

ARM Radiosondes for National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project Validation Field Campaign Report

This IOP has been a coordinated effort involving the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation (ARM) Climate Research Facility, the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison, and the JPSS project to validate SNPP NOAA Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System (NUCAPS) temperature and moisture sounding products from the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) and the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS). In this arrangement, funding for radiosondes was provided by the JPSS project to ARM. These radiosondes were launched coincident with the SNPP satellite overpasses (OP) at four of the ARM field sites beginning in July 2012 and running through September 2017. Combined with other ARM data, an assessment of the radiosonde data quality was performed and post-processing corrections applied producing an ARM site Best Estimate (BE) product. The SNPP targeted radiosondes were integrated into the NOAA Products Validation System (NPROVS+) system, which collocated the radiosondes with satellite products (NOAA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA], European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites [EUMETSAT], Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite [GOES], Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate [COSMIC]) and Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP forecasts for use in product assessment and algorithm development. This work was a fundamental, integral, and cost-effective part of the SNPP validation effort and provided critical accuracy assessments of the SNPP temperature and water vapor soundings.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

Decadal Vision Progress Report Implementation Plans and Status for the Next Generation ARM Facility

The reconfiguration of the ARM facility, formally initiated in early 2014, is geared toward implementing the Next Generation of the ARM Facility, which will more tightly link ARM measurements and atmospheric models. The strategy is outlined in the ARM Climate Research Facility Decadal Vision (DOE 2014a). The strategy includes the implementation of a high-resolution model, initially at the Southern Great Plains (SGP) site, and enhancements at the SGP and North Slope of Alaska (NSA) sites to provide additional observations to support modeling and process studies. Enhancements at the SGP site focus on ground-based instruments while enhancements at the NSA make use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and Tethered Balloon Systems (TBS). It is also recognized that new data tools and data products will need to be developed to take full advantage of these improvements. This document provides an update on the status of these ARM facility enhancements, beginning with the measurement enhancements at the SGP and NSA, followed by a discussion of the modeling project including associated data-processing activities.

Southern Great Plains, North Slope of Alaska, Unma↗

DOE OSTI2016

Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) – Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility – Atmospheric System Research (ASR) Coordination Workshop, October 21–22, 2015

The Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research focuses on advancing a robust predictive understanding of Earth’s climate and environmental systems to inform the development of sustainable solutions to the Nation’s energy and environmental challenges. CESD climate activities related to atmospheric processes include: observations through the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility; atmospheric research and model parameterization development through the Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program; climate model development and climate research through the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project along with other computationally focused model-development activities within the CESD Earth System Modeling (ESM) program, and development of robust model analytical and testing frameworks at multiple scales through the Regional and Global Climate Modeling program. This workshop focused primarily on improving model treatment of atmospheric processes as a means to focus discussion and did not address research on terrestrial ecosystem and subsurface processes, which are also part of the CESD research portfolio.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2014

Introduction to Reading and Visualizing ARM Data

Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program standard data format is NetCDF 3 (Network Common Data Form). The object of this tutorial is to provide a basic introduction to NetCDF with an emphasis on aspects of the ARM application of NetCDF. The goal is to provide basic instructions for reading and visualizing ARM NetCDF data with the expectation that these examples can then be applied to more complex applications.

Mather, James↗

DOE OSTI2012

Biological and Environmental Research, Climate and Environmental Sciences Division: U.S./European Workshop on Climate Change Challenges and Observations

The workshop aimed to identify outstanding climate change science questions and the observational strategies for addressing them. The scientific focus was clouds, aerosols, and precipitation, and the required ground- and aerial-based observations. The workshop findings will be useful input for setting priorities within the Department of Energy (DOE) and the participating European centers. This joint workshop was envisioned as the first step in enhancing the collaboration among these climate research activities needed to better serve the science community.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS1994

In situ detection of tropospheric OH and HO2 by laser-induced fluorescence in a detection chamber at low pressure

Just as in the method of Hard and O'Brien, ambient air is pulled through an approximately 1 mm diameter inlet into a detection chamber that is maintained at a pressure of 2.4 torr. The ambient air stream travels through the detection chamber with a velocity of greater than 100 m sec(exp -1) in a narrow stream, constrained by the addition of an inert gas flow (0.4 torr). The OH molecule is both excited and detected in the A(exp 2)Sigma (v' = 0) yields X(exp 2)II (v'' = 0) transition at 308 nm. Light from a copper vapor-pumped dye laser (rep. rate = 10kHz; pulse length = 20 ns; linewidth = .1 cm(exp -1), and average power = 15 mW), resonant with the Q(sub 1)(3) transition, is multipassed through a White cell and intercepts the air stream as 24 non-overlapping 2mm by 5mm beams. A fast microchannel plate detector is turned off during the laser pulse to prevent saturation of the detector due to Rayleigh and chamber scattering. It is turned on 30-100 nsec after the end of the laser pulse for 300 ns to collect resonance fluorescence from OH. HO2 is detected by chemical conversion to OH by reaction with reagent NO, followed by OH detection. Both the detection sensitivity and the inlet characteristics must be understood for any in situ instrument. For the calibration of the detection sensitivity, OH is produced quantitatively by the fast H + NO2 yields OH + NO reaction in a low pressure, flowing discharge tube connected to the detection chamber. The inlet transmission of OH inlet is calibrated separately.

Brune, William H.↗