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The 3rd Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mobile Facility Deployment to the Southeastern United States (SEUS): Updates on Siting, Instrumentation, and Opportunities for Inter-agency Coordination
CHONGAI KUANG, Scott Giangrande, Shawn Serbin, Gregory Elsaesser, Pierre Gentine, Thijs Heus, John Peters, Mariko Oue, James Smith, Allison Steiner, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Abstract Number: 370
Working Group: Aerosols, Clouds and Climate
Abstract
The DOE 3rd ARM Mobile Facility (AMF3) will be relocating to the Southeastern United States (SEUS) with a planned operational start in Spring 2023. The SEUS region is characterized by: high vegetative emissions of volatile organic compounds (e.g., isoprene and monoterpenes); a wide range in anthropogenic emissions (e.g., NOx) from proximity to rural areas and dense urban cores; biomass burning from periodic prescribed and unplanned burning; and large amounts of secondary organic aerosol. This AMF3 deployment is a unique opportunity to improve understanding and model representation of coupled aerosol, cloud, and land-surface processes in an environment where such processes are strongly driven by local forcings. A defining aspect of this AMF3 deployment is an expectation for long-term (~5 year) observations to account for seasonal to annual variability that may limit appropriate attribution of local to larger-scale phenomena. Understanding this role of spatiotemporal variability (e.g., atmospheric thermodynamic variability, variation in land-surface properties and seasonality) across aspects of the climate system is a key motivator for AMF3 SEUS studies. This is especially true for characterizing the relationships between aerosol and land-surface processes over a diverse patchwork of natural, managed, and urban landscapes found across the SEUS. The Site Science Team (SST) is tasked to help identify the most impactful SEUS science drivers, locations, key instruments and measurement strategies to address wider climate-process study needs. Building on previous siting criteria, instrument justifications, updates and interactive feedback sessions provided to the broader community, the SST will present its latest planning updates, including recent site short-list feedback to map relevant SEUS science themes to a narrower subset of potential AMF3 locations. These efforts steer towards a comprehensive accounting (e.g., science plan) for eventual scientific opportunities as more deployment specifics become available.