AMF Deployment, Steamboat Springs, Colorado

This view shows the instrument locations for the STORMVEX campaign. At the westernmost site is the Valley Floor. Heading east up the mountain is Christy Peak, Thunderhead, and Storm Peak Laboratory at the far east.
Image from the Total Sky Imager Image from the Total Sky Imager
Current sky cover retrievals at the Steamboat Spring Facility, to learn more go here.

Valley Floor: 40° 39' 43.92" N, 106° 49' 0.84" W
Thunderhead: 40° 39' 15.12" N, 106° 46' 23.16" W
Storm Peak: 40° 27' 18.36" N, 106° 44' 40.20" W
Christie Peak: 40° 27' 16.56" N, 106° 47' 14.64" W
Altitude: 2078 meters

In October 2010, the initial deployment of the second ARM Mobile Facility (AMF2) takes place at Steamboat Springs, Colorado, for the Storm Peak Laboratory Cloud Property Validation Experiment (STORMVEX). The objective of this field campaign is to obtain data about liquid and mixed-phase clouds using AMF2 instruments in conjunction with Storm Peak Laboratory, a cloud and aerosol research facility operated by the Desert Research Institute.

The already extensive instrument suite at Storm Peak Lab, located at an elevation of 3220 meters on Mt. Werner, will be augmented with additional state-of-the-art instruments typically used for airborne cloud research. The instrumentation at Storm Peak will collect in situ cloud, and precipitation property measurements, while AMF2 instrumentation operates at lower elevations to gather complementary measurements.

In addition to cloud measurements, STORMVEX includes a new generation of ground-based aerosol observing instruments to measure aerosol concentrations and optical properties. These measurements will be used to better understand how particles interact with solar radiation and influence the earth's radiation balance. Of particular importance to STORMVEX are aerosols that serve as catalysts that form clouds or ice, and their effects on cloud and precipitation processes.

These resulting data sets will be used to test and improve the way cloud and aerosol processes work in climate models.