¶ ARM Mobile Facilities (AMF)
¶ Introduction
To explore science questions beyond those addressed by ARM's fixed sites at the Southern Great Plains, North Slope of Alaska, and Tropical Western Pacific locales, researchers can use an ARM Mobile Facility (AMF). With instrumentation and data systems similar to the fixed sites, the AMF is designed to operate in any environment—from the cold of the Arctic to the heat of the tropics—for campaigns lasting a minimum of 6 months. The first AMF (AMF1) was deployed in 2005; a second AMF (AMF2) first deployed in 2010, and AMF (AMF3) was deployed in 2013.
Portability and flexibility are the keys to the design of the AMF that help ensure successful deployments. AMF1 consists of a minimum of two lightweight shelters, a baseline suite of instruments, data communications, and data systems. When applicable, an AMF will also be able to deploy in either an existing facility or other suitable shelters. Instrument capabilities include the standard meteorological instrumentation, broadband and spectral radiometer suite, and remote sensing instruments. With this suite of instruments, an AMF provides researchers with data from various climatic regimes not previously explored. The mobile facilities also have the capacity (space, power, and processing) to add additional instruments from guest scientists.
A list of the past, current, and future deployments can be found here, http://www.arm.gov/campaigns/table, by searching for just the AMF.
Due to the relatively short duration of the AMF deployments, special care must be taken by the DQO to ensure that any data quality issues are resolved as quickly as possible. While DQAs are still produced on a weekly basis, data and instrument issues must be detected in a more timely manner. As such, the DQ Explorer metrics and plots for the AMF must be viewed daily during the operational phase of deployments.
¶ Current AMF Deployments
| Code | Facility | Description | Date(s) of Deployment |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPC | AMF1 | Eastern Pacific Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment, La Jolla, CA | 2/1/23 - 1/31/24 |
| GUC | AMF2 | Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory (SAIL), Gunnison, CO | 9/1/22 - 6/15/23 |
| BNF | AMF3 | Southeast US in Bankhead National Forest, AL | 9/1/23 - 8/31/28 |
¶ AMF 3-letter Codes From Past Deployments
| Code | Facility | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ASI | AMF1 | Ascension Island Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds (LASIC) |
| MAO | AMF1 | Manacapuru, Brazil |
| TMP | AMF1 | Hyytiala, Finland |
| PGH | AMF1 | India GVAX |
| COR | AMF1 | CLOUD, AEROSOL, AND COMPLEX TERRAIN INTERACTIONS (CACTI) |
| ANX | AMF1 | Cold-Air Outbreaks in the Marine Boundary Layer Experiment (COMBLE) |
| HOU | AMF1 | TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER) |
| AWR | AMF2 | ARM West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE) |
| ACX | AMF2 | Ship: Ron Brown, ARM Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment (ACAPEX) |
| MAG | AMF2 | Marine ARM GPCI Investigations of Clouds |
| GAN | AMF2 | Gan Island, Maldives |
| MAR | AMF2 | Measurements of Aerosols, Radiation, and Clouds over the Southern Ocean (MARCUS) |
| MOS | AMF2 | Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAIC) |
| GUC | AMF2 | Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory (SAIL) |
| OLI | AMF3 | Oliktok Point, Alaska |