Propose a Field Campaign

Before submitting a field campaign pre-proposal to the ARM Climate Research Facility, read the ARM Field Campaign Guidelines for an overview of processes and requirements. Guidelines for smaller campaigns (e.g., deployment of a guest instrument at an ARM site) and the Annual Facility Call are also available.

ARM reviews proposals on a quarterly, semi-annual, and annual basis as determined by the individual proposal classification. When submitting a pre-proposal, ensure that the proposed start date of the campaign leaves adequate time for the review and approval process. See the proposal review schedule for when campaigns will be approved.

Note: If preparing preproposals in Microsoft® Word® or other document preparation software, please copy and paste it into a plain text editor, such as Notepad, before copying it into the pre-proposal. This helps eliminate hidden code from being carried over. If including scientific characters or any other special characters, please use the ISO 8859-1 standard for HTML conversion or spell it out. For assistance with characters conversion, contact the administrators.

Choose the lead scientist (a.k.a., principal investigator or PI).

• Enter the PIs last name and click search
• Select the name of the desired person in the list that appears

Choose the co-investigator(s)

• Enter the last name of the investigator and click search
• Click on name of the desired person in the list that appears.
• Repeat for each additional co-investigator.

Give the campaign pre-proposal a name (e.g., Spring Cloud Field Campaign or Nauru Island Effect Study).  Campaign names should be 50 characters or less.

Enter the time span for the campaign (e.g., 01 Oct 2017 to 30 Sep 2018)

Select the primary atmospheric observatory designation.

IMPORTANT If the proposal includes any ARM mobile facilities support, please select AMF (e.g., a campaign using combined ARM Aerial Facility and AMF approach should have AMF chosen as the primary atmospheric observatory designation).

Choose only ONE primary site designation. (If no physical deployment is required, a special data set request may be appropriate.)

List any secondary atmospheric observatory designation (e.g., indicate if the G-1 will be required to support an AMF campaign).

Summarize the scientific focus of the campaign. Briefly describe the scientific goals you expect to achieve through this research.

Explain the relevancy of this campaign to the ARM mission and decadal vision.

Describe the campaign plan. This description should include:

1. The general work plan and experimental methods and nature of the measurements to be made.
2. Information about the spatial and temporal nature of the data collection and methods for data analysis.
3. How the proposed measurements will meet the scientific objectives.

List the resources that will be needed for this campaign. Include resources (e.g., facilities, instrumentation, logistical support, guest instrument support, soundings, special instrument scanning or operational strategies, etc.) being requested from the ARM Facility.

1. If proposing a campaign using the ARM mobile or aerial atmospheric observatories, review the lists of baseline instruments for the AMF1, AMF2, AMF3, MAOS, and AAF. Indicate which instruments are most critical for this activity, as it may not be feasible to deploy all instruments for every campaign.
2. Indicate if the scanning precipitation radar is required.
3. If proposing measurements from the MAOS, carefully review these instruments and indicate what measurements are most critical and for what duration. Also, indicate if there are any specific expectations for any of the chemistry measurements (e.g., specific targeted species). Note: Only one MAOS and one transportable precipitation radar are available across the ARM Facility.

List any additional instruments that will be brought to the site.

1. Indicate if these instruments will require on-site support by the investigators, and if so, note the period of time investigators will be on site (Note: a site access request must be completed for each site visitor).
2. Indicate if ARM technicians are needed to establish and maintain additional instruments.
3. If planning to bring an instrument on site, an instrument support request must be submitted to provide information about the instrument, including its power and data transfer requirements. Review the Instrument Support Request Form. This form allows the individual ARM site operations group to assess deployment/removal needs, data connections, data/metadata information, electrical requirements, required operations and maintenance support, as well as safety.

Indicate if aircraft operations, beyond those provided by the AAF, are included in the proposal.  If so, indicate the nature of the operations proposed (e.g., platform, operator, payload summary) and explain the purpose of those aircraft by providing an outline in the “Additional Information” section of the pre-proposal form.

Indicate if research funding has been secured.

IMPORTANT The ARM Facility provides use of the facility resources (e.g., logistics, power, ARM staff support, etc.) for campaigns, but does not provide research funding. Research funding is necessary to support all investigator efforts, travel, and/or expenses. Note: Approved campaigns for which research funding has not been obtained will be held for 1 year for the principal investigator to obtain funding; after that time, principal investigators must resubmit their proposals for approval.

Indicate the nature of the research (proprietary vs. non-proprietary).

IMPORTANT Principal investigators (users) are not charged for use of ARM facilities for non-proprietary work, with the understanding that users are expected to publish their results. Access is also available on a cost-recovery basis for proprietary research that is not intended for publication. Contact the ARM Technical Director’s office for guidance on field campaigns being proposed for proprietary research and full-cost recovery rates for use of the ARM facilities.

Agree to PI expectations and submit the form.

Principal investigators must review and agree to the expectations for principal investigators, associated with approved campaigns when submitting a pre-proposal.