As a matter of government policy, all U.S. Department of Energy user facilities, including the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility, have a number of reporting requirements. ARM is required to report to the DOE ARM Program Director, to the DOE’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research, and to the White House Office of Management and Budget. A primary requirement for ARM is the documentation of new users. New users for this purpose are defined as first-time visitors to any of the ARM sites. The category of new users also includes new data users at the ARM Data Center or any of the local site data systems.
The main performance measure for site operations is the data availability for each instrument at each site. ARM Operations is responsible for keeping the instruments operating as continuously as possible and keeping the data flowing to the ARM Data Center, where the data and metadata are eventually made available to users. The Data Quality Office is responsible for data usability, making sure that the data are of known and reasonable quality. The Data Quality Office routinely provides rigorous data quality checks and reports problems to the Problem Review Board. These problems are resolved as quickly as possible and the causes and solutions to the problems are documented to help prevent any future data loss.
The ARM Data Center is the repository of all ARM data and all user facility data. The Data Services Manager is responsible for user data accessibility. The ARM Communications Team reports on the scientific results and successes of new and existing users and the development and growth of ARM.