Members of the ARM Climate Research Facility’s science team are major contributors to radiation and cloud research. Scientists and investigators using ARM facilities publish about 150 refereed journal articles per year, and ARM Facility data are used in many studies published by other scientific organizations. These documented research efforts represent tangible evidence of the ARM Facility’s contribution to advances in almost all areas of atmospheric radiation and cloud research.
Research Highlights
Recent Highlights
Less is More: Low Aerosol Concentrations Produce High Variability in Cloud Droplet Sizes
7 January 2017
Ovchinnikov, Mikhail
Funded by:
Research area: Cloud Processes
Clouds form when water vapor in the atmosphere condenses around airborne particles, or aerosols, but the exact details of the process remain relatively unknown. Researchers used large-eddy simulations (LES) to model cloud droplets that formed in Michigan Technological University’s cloud chamber by injecting various amounts of aerosols. They found that [...]
To Evaporate or Not To Evaporate: The Question of Secondary Organic Particulate Matter Lability
7 January 2017
Martin, Scot T.
Funded by:
Research area: Aerosol Properties
New research highlights a nonlabile-to-labile transition for material representative of anthropogenic secondary organic particulate matter at a threshold humidity range. This behavior differs markedly from materials representing biogenic aerosol sources, which lack such a transition.
Daily Cycle of Cloudiness over Maritime Continent Disrupt the Madden-Julian Oscillation
6 January 2017
Fast, Jerome D
Funded by:
Research area: Radiation Processes
Every month or two, a large complex of clouds forms over the Indian Ocean and moves eastward, a pattern known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). The MJO exhibits hard-to-predict behaviors, often weakening, as it moves across the Maritime Continent (MC; Indonesia-Malaysia and New Guinea)—so-called because of its combination of shallow [...]