Overview of ARM cloud and precipitation observations during AMIE
Authors
Sally A. McFarlane — U.S. Department of Energy
Chuck N. Long (deceased) — NOAA- Earth System Research Laboratory
Jennifer M. Comstock — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Nitin Bharadwaj — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Chitra Sivaraman — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Karen Lee Johnson — Brookhaven National Laboratory
Michael T. Ritsche — Argonne National Laboratory
Brad W. Orr — No Affiliation
Category
Field Campaigns
Description
The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) MJO Investigation Experiment (AMIE) occurred Oct 1, 2011–March 31, 2012 in association with the DYNAMO (Dynamics of the Madden-Julian Oscillation) and CINDY2011 (Cooperative Indian Ocean experiment on intraseasonal variability in the Year 2011) campaigns. The primary goal of these campaigns is to improve understanding of the roles that the interaction between environmental moisture and convection, the dynamic evolution of the cloud population, and air-sea interaction play in MJO initiation.
The AMIE component of the campaign was focused on collecting measurements to address the first two questions. AMIE included measurements both with the second ARM mobile facility (AMF2) in the Maldives and at the permanent ARM site on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. The dual-pronged nature of the AMIE experiment allowed observation of both MJO initiation in the Indian Ocean (at the Maldives site) and the mature phase of the MJO as it passed over the maritime continent (at the Manus site). In the Maldives, the AMF2 was located on Gan Island, at the Addu airport. The AMF2 consists of a full suite of atmospheric instrumentation including surface meteorological instruments, radiometers, vertically pointing ceilometer, cloud radar and lidar, and a 2D video disdrometer. As part of the AMF2 deployment, the dual-wavelength Scanning ARM Cloud Radar (SACR) was also deployed nine kilometers from the airport to document the 3D spatial characteristics of the cloud field. At Manus, a similar suite of instruments is available at the permanent ARM facility.
In this presentation, we give an overview of the ARM cloud and precipitation observations during AMIE including data set availability, instrument performance, and some initial results.