Spatial variability in clouds, precipitation, surface fluxes, and soil properties at the ARM Southern Great Plains site
Authors
Krista Gaustad — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Shaocheng Xie — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Yunyan Zhang — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Laura Dian Riihimaki — CIRES | NOAA ESRL GML
Qi Tang — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Jessica Osuna — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Category
ARM Infrastructure
Description
Spatial variability is of critical importance to many scientific studies, especially those involve quantities (e.g., precipitation, clouds, surface turbulence fluxes, and soil properties) of great spatial variations at high temporal frequencies. High-density atmospheric radiation measurement (ARM) sites deployed at the U.S. Southern Great Plains (SGP) allow us to observe the spatial patterns of those variables. The upcoming super site at SGP with enhanced spatial density will facilitate the studies at even finer scales. In this study, we examine the spatial variability of many key surface and land variables. We further exploit the possibilities of identifying dominant drivers (i.e., large scale atmospheric forcings and local feedback) of atmospheric and land surface processes with ARM measurements. These observation-based findings will be likely to help interpret model simulations, especially at the process level.
This work is performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. LLNL-ABS-666346
