Researchers Jie Song from the University of Northern Illinois and Weidong Guo from Nanjing University visited the ARM Southern Great Plains site in June to learn more about ARM and discuss in detail the organization of the user facility, processes and procedures, and instrumentation. Their visit was prompted by continuing interest in China to establish a program for defining current meteorological conditions and possible aridity trends in some regions of that country.
A few years ago, Pete Lamb, SGP site scientist, exchanged visits with climate researchers from China to explore ways that both parties could learn from advances in each country’s climate science efforts. The recent SGP site visit started with Lamb providing an overview of the ARM program and its history. Dan Rusk, SGP site operations manager, then gave a walking tour of the SGP Central Facility, describing all the different instruments, site services, and user capabilities. ARM radar engineers were on site and also showed the visitors some data from the new cloud radars.
Back at the site office building, Rusk concluded the tour with a presentation explaining the instrument mentor-technician paradigm, corrective and preventative maintenance reports, data availability, status reporting, and configuration change requirements. He also showed them the ARM website and how to browse ARM data, including the new Data System Status Viewer, or DSView, web page. Following their visit, Prof. Guo sent a note of appreciation about their time at the SGP site.
“As Prof. Jie Song mentioned, your site is indeed the most comprehensive open laboratory in the world! We were deeply impressed by the high level of instrumentation and professionalism that you have demonstrated at your work. It goes without saying that we experienced an extraordinary day at your site! Thank you so much for your kind help and thoughtful planning throughout the whole period of our visit!” wrote Prof. Guo.
Lamb will reconnect with the scientists at the Second China-U.S. Symposium on Meteorology, which is currently in the planning stages for September 2012. He is working with Chinese representatives to solidify arrangements for the Symposium, proposed to be held in Qingdao, on the coast between Beijing and Shanghai. The event is a follow up to the first symposium coordinated by Lamb and held at the National Weather Center in Norman in February 2008. If there is sufficient interest, the second symposium will have a session devoted to the AMF deployment in China.