Campaigns

The ARM Climate Research Facility provides the scientific community with the operational and logistical resources to conduct field campaigns that focus on advancing research in support of the ARM mission.

Priority will be given to proposals that make comprehensive use of ARM facilities, focus on strategic goals of the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), and have the ability to improve regional or global earth system models.

Proposals that coordinate with other BER community capabilities, such as the Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program, Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy project, and Climate and Earth Systems Modeling, are encouraged.

ARM accepts proposals for two types of field campaigns:

• Small Campaigns – These campaigns cost the ARM Facility less than $300k and may include deployment of guest instruments, instruments for offsite deployments, or special operations, such as enhanced radiosonde or special scanning strategies.
• Annual Facility Call Campaigns – These campaigns typically exceed $300k cost to the ARM Facility and include a large fixed-location atmospheric observatory campaign, and/or deployment of ARM mobile facilities (AMF) and/or the ARM aerial facilities (AAF).

Before proposing a field campaign, principal investigators should read the expectations for principal investigators and review the ARM field campaign guidelines to ensure they understand all responsibilities and determine if their campaign fits the parameters defined by the ARM Facility. The field campaign guidelines also describe the proposal review process and timeline. Proposals are reviewed quarterly to annually depending on the size of the proposed campaign.

To propose a campaign, principal investigators must first submit a pre-proposal. Read the field campaign pre-proposal instructions for detailed information on how to fill out and submit the pre-proposal form.

The initial review of pre-proposals and responses to the principal investigators (PIs) will normally be communicated within four weeks of submission and may include requests for clarifying information, an abbreviated or a full proposal, and/or information regarding the review timeline.

Before a campaign begins, the PI must submit an abstract, suitable for posting on the ARM website. Based on the scope the field campaign, a science plan may also be required. The PI should work closely with the appropriate site manager regarding mutual expectations during the execution phase of the campaign.

When closing out a field campaign, the PI has six months after completion of the campaign to prepare and submit the following items:

1. Final Report – The PI is required to submit a brief, final report of the outcome to the ARM Science Liaison to complete ARM documentation. Download the template/instructions.
2. Data Submission – The PI is required to submit the final quality-assured data for all non-ARM instruments to ARM.