DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program research and ARM Climate Research Facility (ACRF) user capabilities are featured in the March 2005 Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society newsletter published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., (IEEE). Featured on the cover is a photo showing instrumentation mounted on the “Sky Deck” of ACRF’s research site in Barrow, Alaska, during the Arctic Winter Water Vapor Intensive Operational Period (IOP) conducted March 9-April 9, 2004. Later in the issue, an ARM principal investigator from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and coauthors provide a lengthy educational tutorial about surface-based measurements of temperature, water vapor, and cloud liquid in the troposphere, and discuss the latest technologies used to obtain these measurements.

Barrow is the northernmost point in the United States, and is one of two Arctic sites (Atqasuk, Alaska, is the other) that make up the ACRF’s North Slope of Alaska locale. The major goal of the Arctic Winter Water Vapor IOP was to demonstrate that millimeter wavelength radiometers can substantially improve water vapor observations during Arctic winter. As presented in the tutorial, radiometers deployed during the IOP included the Ground-based Scanning Radiometer of NOAA’s Environmental Technology Laboratory (several frequencies from 50 to 380 GHz), the Microwave Radiometer and the Radiometric Profiler of ARM (frequencies from 22.235 to 60 GHz) and the Montana State Infrared Cloud Imager (ICI). Three posters describing results from this experiment were presented at the 2005 ARM Science Team Meeting, held March 14-18 in Daytona Beach, Florida.

The IEEE is made up of more than 360,000 individual members in approximately 175 countries. Its members represent the leading authority in technical areas ranging from computer engineering, biomedical technology and telecommunications, to electric power, aerospace and consumer electronics, among others. Through its technical publishing, the IEEE produces 30% of the world’s published literature in electrical engineering, computers and control technology.