ARM User Facility

More than two years after ARM’s Eastern Pacific Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment (EPCAPE) wrapped up operations in La Jolla, California, scientists are uncovering new insights into how aerosols and coastal marine clouds interact. The yearlong campaign produced an unprecedented data set from ARM and guest instruments, capturing cloud behavior across times of days, seasons, and elevations. EPCAPE data are supporting efforts to evaluate and improve earth system models while fueling a growing body of research on cloud physics, chemistry, and atmospheric processes. ☁️🌅🌎



📷: ARM instruments and containers are arrayed along the Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial Pier in La Jolla, California, as part of EPCAPE. Photo is by Gregory Roberts, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

🚨New Data Alert🚨

Convective Parameters Derived from Radiosonde Data (SONDEPARAM) data are now available for the 2024–2025 Coast-Urban-Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment (CoURAGE) in the Baltimore, Maryland, area. This value-added product applies consistent algorithms to ARM radiosonde observations to calculate key convective cloud parameters, including convective available potential energy, convective inhibition, and lifting condensation level, with multiple parcel options for enhanced analysis. Data are available from CoURAGE’s main site in Baltimore and rural supplemental site near Mount Airy, supporting studies of atmospheric convection across urban and rural environments. 🎈⛈️



📷: Kate Kramer, Los Alamos National Laboratory, launches a balloon-borne sounding system (SONDE) as part of CoURAGE. Photo is by Nadia Partida, Los Alamos National Laboratory.

❄️ Atmospheric ice plays a critical role in clouds, precipitation, and Earth's energy balance, but many ice processes remain poorly understood.

A new U.S. Department of Energy report highlights key research priorities, emerging opportunities in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the path toward improving earth system models. ✨🌎

👀 See how ARM observatories and data can play a role in advancing atmospheric ice processes research and what's next for the scientific community in this report: https://bit.ly/4ovIpjv

The ARM User Executive Committee (UEC) is strengthening its engagement with the user community as ARM explores new opportunities in artificial intelligence (AI), energy, and national security. Through focused efforts on field campaign proposals, AI and machine learning, community feedback, and modeling engagement, the UEC is working to help improve communication, streamline processes, and enhance the ARM user experience. ✨🤝🗣️

👉 Read the full blog post from UEC Chair Michael Jensen, Brookhaven National Laboratory, to learn more about these initiatives and how you can get involved: https://arm.gov/news/blog/post/108267?utm_campaign=UEC+Blog&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=1781571606

📷: ARM UEC Chair Michael Jensen. Photo is by Timothy Kuhn, Brookhaven National Laboratory.

✨ ARM is advancing its artificial intelligence (AI)-ready infrastructure with major upgrades to computing, storage, and software systems that will help researchers more easily access, analyze, and manage more than 8 petabytes of atmospheric data. 💻 ⛈️

ARM Chief Data and Computing Officer Giri Prakash notes that advances in AI are reshaping how researchers interact with large scientific data collections. To support this shift, ARM is expanding its AI-ready capabilities with new graphics processing unit resources, the upcoming AI-powered ARM Data Advisor (ADA) for conversational data discovery, and the Agentic Tooling and Large Language Model (LLM) Augmentation Stack (ATLAS), a platform designed to connect AI models, agents, and scientific workflows.

📷: The ARM Data Center has been preparing its infrastructure, including the Cumulus high performance computing cluster, for AI. Image is courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

🎉 1,000 pull requests and counting!

The Atmospheric data Community Toolkit (ACT) has officially reached 1,000 merged pull requests (contributions of code back to ACT) since launching in 2018. 🚀

ACT continues to advance open science by providing functions for all parts of the scientific process: discovery, input/output, quality control, corrections, retrievals, visualization, and analysis.

Thank you to everyone who has helped shape ACT's first 1,000 contributions. Here's to the next milestone! 💙

The ARM User Facility has launched the ARM Model Advisory Committee (AMAC), a new group dedicated to strengthening connections between ARM and the modeling community. Bringing together experts from national labs and universities, the AMAC will help identify high-impact opportunities for ARM data to support model development and evaluation, as well as research on extreme weather, hydrological hazards, and energy-related impacts. ⛈️💧🌎

👉 Learn more about the AMAC in this blog post by ARM Associate Director for Research Jennifer Comstock: https://bit.ly/4ac7UjZ



📷: In March 2026, the AMAC had its first meeting, where ARM provided an overview of current opportunities and ongoing activities, such as the Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) ARM Symbiotic Simulation and Observation (LASSO) activity. This rendering shows simulated radar reflectivity during ARM’s Cloud, Aerosol, and Complex Terrain Interactions (CACTI) campaign in Argentina. As part of its LASSO-CACTI scenario, ARM provides high-resolution simulations that have been evaluated against CACTI observations. Image is courtesy of William Gustafson, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

The ARM User Facility has developed a new organizational structure for its data quality operations to meet growing demands from increasingly complex instruments, data products, and software tools. By expanding data quality responsibilities across ARM and leveraging advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, ARM is better equipped to respond to evolving needs while maintaining its commitment to providing high-quality atmospheric research data. 🌦️📊📈

👉 Read the full story to learn more about how ARM is restructuring its data quality operations: https://bit.ly/3Q3QKOx



📷: ARM staff participated in an April 2026 hackathon at the ARM Data Quality Office at the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research & Operations at the University of Oklahoma CIWRO, where they learned about data quality processing, procedures, and tools. Photo is by Nicki Hickmon, Argonne National Laboratory.

📢 Deadline alert: Last week to apply for ARM's instrument mentor position for ground-based aerosol precursor measurements!

The selected mentor will provide technical leadership for measurements including carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O₃), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), and the planned expansion of nitrogen oxide (NOx) observations. This is an exciting opportunity that combines instrumentation, operations, calibration standards, scientific-strategy, and long-term planning to advance ARM's aerosol capabilities across its fixed and mobile observatories.

📅 Application deadline: June 15, 2026