AMIE: A two-pronged campaign to study the MJO

 

Authors

Chuck N. Long (deceased) — NOAA- Earth System Research Laboratory
Sally A. McFarlane — U.S. Department of Energy

Category

Field Campaigns

Description

Schematic map of AMIE-Gan/DYNAMO/CINDY2011 study area in the Indian Ocean (left red circle), and AMIE-Manus site in the tropical western Pacific (right red circle), with the Maritime Continent area in between.
The Madden-Julian Oscillation remains a significantly elusive target for both physical understanding of its causes and accurate modeling. Several hypotheses have been put forth as to the mechanisms that cause the MJO to initiate in the equatorial Indian Ocean, propagate westward through the Maritime Continent, and persist into the Pacific. Yet further progress in understanding has been hindered due to a lack of adequate field measurements for study of the mechanisms and hypotheses suspected of being related to the MJO. The ARM MJO Investigation Experiment (AMIE) includes two field campaign sites. AMIE-Manus will be held in conjunction with the ARM TWP Manus facility in Papua New Guinea, especially taking advantage of the new scanning radars recently deployed. AMIE-Gan will be a deployment of the second ARM Mobile Facility on Gan Island, Addu Atoll, Maldives. Both campaigns will run from October 1, 2011 through end of March 2012 in conjunction with the larger international CINDY2011*, and the U.S. contribution to CINDY2011 called DYNAMO (Dynamics of the MJO). The synergy of the AMIE/DYNAMO/CINDY2011 campaigns will allow study of MJO initiation, plus aspects of its propagation and evolution. We will describe various aspects of the AMIE campaign, including scientific aspects, siting, collaborations, and synergies. *Cooperative Indian Ocean experiment on intraseasonal variability in the Year 2011