Research Opportunities at Mobile Atmospheric Observatory #1 (AMF1)
Authors
Maciej Ryczek — Los Alamos National Laboratory
Heath H Powers — Los Alamos National Laboratory
Kim L. Nitschke — Los Alamos National Laboratory
Amon Haruta — Los Alamos National Laboratory
Allison C Aiken — Los Alamos National Laboratory
Orlando Leone — Los Alamos National Laboratory
Category
ARM infrastructure
Description
ARM’s first Mobile Facility (AMF1), operated by a team from Los Alamos National Laboratory, supports atmospheric and climate-data field campaigns from under-sampled regions around the world.
Each AMF is designed and customized to operate in any environment—from the cold of the Arctic to the heat of the tropics. AMFs have instrumentation and data systems similar to the fixed atmospheric observatories, and about 50 instruments are deployed with each facility to obtain continuous measurements of clouds, aerosols, precipitation, energy, and other meteorological variables. Measurement capabilities of the AMFs include standard meteorological instrumentation, a broadband and spectral radiometer suite, and remote-sensing measurements including lidars and cloud radars. The AMF1 has gathered data from Brazil, India, Niger, China, and the Maldives. It is currently deployed to Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean and will be customized for a deployment to the mountains of Argentina.
