Mobile Facility
The ARM Mobile Facility (AMF) has been designed to explore science questions beyond those addressed by ARM's current fixed sites at the North Slope of Alaska (NSA) and Tropical Western Pacific (TWP) locales. With instrumentation and data systems similar to these sites, the AMF will deploy to locations around the world for campaigns lasting 6 to 12 months. It is designed to operate in any environment, from the cold of the Arctic to the heat of the tropics. The preliminary design was completed in 2002, integration began in late 2003, and beta testing was successfully completed in January 2005.
Portability and flexibility are the keys to the design of the AMF that help ensure successful deployments. The AMF consists of a minimum of two lightweight shelters, a baseline suite of instruments, data communications, and data systems. When applicable, the 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, the AMF provides researchers with data from various climatic regimes not previously explored. The AMF also has the capacity (space, power, and processing) to add a significant amount of additional instruments.
Artist's 3D rendering of the Mobile Facility.
After a successful six-month stint in 2005 taking cloud and aerosol measurements at Point Reyes National Seashore on the California coast, the AMF spent a year in Niamey, Niger in West Africa, obtaining data to study the effects of Saharan dust and the West African monsoons. In 2007, the AMF was deployed in the village of Heselbach, Germany, as one of several "supersites" established in the Black Forest to obtain atmospheric information in support of a German precipitation study. The AMF is now in Shouxian, China, for a study of aerosol indirect effects.
