AMF2 MAGIC deployment aboard the Horizon Spirit

 

Authors

Michael T. Ritsche — Argonne National Laboratory
Nicki Hickmon — Argonne National Laboratory

Category

Field Campaigns

Description

The second ARM Mobile Facility (AMF2) deployed aboard the Horizon Spirit in support of the Marine ARM GPCI Investigation of Clouds (MAGIC) field campaign. Unlike land-based deployments the full complement of containers and sensors could not be deployed. The small deck area behind the bridge only allowed for three of the nine containers and space for the two stabilized platforms, micropulse lidar module, balloon launch cart, and helium storage. The modular nature of the AMF2 allowed for a reconfiguration of the containers to support the science objectives and to deploy most of the sensors on the roof of the containers. However, some standard ARM sensors could not be deployed aboard a ship and new sensors and techniques had to be developed. The portable radiation package consisting of a precision infrared radiometer (PIR), precision solar pyranometer (PSP), and fast-rotating shadowband radiometer (FRSR) was deployed in place of the SKYRAD, GNDRAD and multifilter rotating shadowband radiometer (MFRSR) systems. The AMF2’s surface meteorology system was not adequate to deploy high on the mast, so a new MarineMet system and an infrared thermometer-based system were developed to measure and calculate the sea surface temperatures for use in the bulk aerodynamic flux calculations. The marine W-band ARM cloud radar (M-WACR) needed a new stabilized platform to keep it level during ship movement. Many of the remaining sensors need real-time or post processing to remove the effects of ship movement on the data requiring the AMF2’s navigation system that measures the required variables. In order to assess the performance of the sensors by the mentors of each system, a small packet of data was sent each day consisting of data quality metrics and small data plots via an Iridium satellite antenna. The full complement of data was transferred either by 3G/4G cellular network or by shipping the high-volume data via hard drives at each port of call. An overview of the MAGIC deployment and associated challenges for the AMF2’s first shipboard deployment will be presented.