Members of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility’s science team are major contributors to radiation and cloud research. Scientists and investigators using ARM publish about 150 peer-reviewed journal articles per year, and ARM data are used in many studies published by other scientific organizations. These documented research efforts represent tangible evidence of ARM’s contribution to advances in almost all areas of atmospheric radiation and cloud research.
Research Highlights
Recent Highlights
Amazon rainforest fires produce secondary ultrafine particles that may affect weather and climate
27 June 2024
Shrivastava, Manishkumar; Fan, Jiwen
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud-Aerosol-Precipitation Interactions
Particles in wildfire smoke can lower air quality and harm human health. Smoke aerosols can also influence weather and climate by modifying cloud formation and changing how much of the sun’s energy is reflected or absorbed by the atmosphere. Compared to larger particles directly emitted from fires, the formation and [...]
Cloud properties vary between the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean even in similar environments
25 June 2024
McFarquhar, Greg
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud Distributions/Characterizations
Cold-air outbreaks (CAOs) occur when cold air moves from the poles over warmer oceans. Extensive boundary-layer clouds form during CAOs, which impacts Earth’s radiative balance. Prior observations of CAO clouds are very limited. Their properties depend on environmental conditions, and the processes responsible for that dependence are not well known, though [...]
Locally narrow droplet size distributions are ubiquitous in stratocumulus clouds
24 June 2024
Shaw, Raymond A
Supported by:
Research area: Cloud Processes
Cloud process rates such as drizzle formation depend on the assumed cloud droplet size distribution shape. These droplet size distributions are based on spatially averaged measurements of cloud droplet number concentration and diameter and are often represented in models as broad gamma distributions.