CLOUDS AND MORE: ARM Climate Modeling Best Estimate Data
Shaocheng Xie,Renata B. McCoy,Stephen A. Klein,Richard T. Cederwall,Warren Wiscombe,Eugene E. Clothiaux,Krista Gaustad,Jean-Christophe Golaz,Stephanie D. Hall,Michael Jensen,Karen Johnson,Yanluan Lin,Charles N. Long,James H. Mather,Raymond A. McCord,Sally A. McFarlane,Giri Palanisamy,Yan Shi,David D. Turner +18 more
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TLDR
The Climate Modeling Best Estimate (CMBE) dataset as mentioned in this paper was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program (www.arm.energy.gov).Abstract:
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program (www.arm.gov) was created in 1989 to address scientific uncertainties related to global climate change, with a focus on the crucial role of clouds and their influence on the transfer of radiation in the atmosphere. A central activity is the acquisition of detailed observations of clouds and radiation, as well as related atmospheric variables for climate model evaluation and improvement. Since 1992, ARM has established six permanent ARM Climate Research Facility (ACRF) sites and deployed an ARM Mobile Facility (AMF) in diverse climate regimes around the world (Fig. 1) to perform long-term continuous field measurements. The time record of ACRF data now exceeds a decade at most ACRF fixed sites and ranges from several months to one year for AMF deployments. Billions of measurements are currently stored in millions of data files in the ACRF Data Archive. The long-term continuous ACRF data provide invaluable information to improve our understanding of the interaction between clouds and radiation, and an observational basis for model validation and improvement and climate studies. Given the huge number of data files and current diversity of archived ACRF data structures, however, it can be difficult for anmore » outside user such as a climate modeler to quickly find the ACRF data product(s) that best meets their research needs. The required geophysical quantities may exist in multiple data streams, and over the history of ACRF operations, the measurements could be obtained by a variety of instruments, reviewed with different levels of data quality assurance, or derived using different algorithms. In addition, most ACRF data are stored in daily-based files with a temporal resolution that ranges from a few seconds to a few minutes, which is much finer than that sought by some users. Therefore, it is not as convenient for data users to perform quick comparisons over large spans of data, and this can hamper the use of ACRF data by the climate community. To make ACRF data better serve the needs of climate studies and model development, ARM has developed a data product specifically tailored for use by the climate community. The new data product, named the Climate Modeling Best Estimate (CMBE) dataset, assembles those quantities that are both well observed by ACRF over many years and are often used in model evaluation into one single dataset. The CMBE product consists of hourly averages and thus has temporal resolution comparable to a typical resolution used in climate model output. It also includes standard deviations within the averaged hour and quality control flags for the selected quantities to indicate the temporal variability and data quality. Since its initial release in February 2008, the new data product has quickly drawn the attention of the climate modeling community. It is being used for model evaluation by two major U.S. climate modeling centers, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of CMBE data and a few examples that demonstrate the potential value of CMBE data for climate modeling and in studies of cloud processes and climate variability and change.« lessread more
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Land surface skin temperature climatology: benefitting from the strengths of satellite observations
Menglin Jin,Robert E. Dickinson +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed nine years of moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) skin temperature observations to present monthly skin temperature diurnal, seasonal, and inter-annual variations at a 0.05° latitude/longitude grid over the global land surface and combines these measurements with other MODIS-based variables in an effort to understand the physical mechanisms responsible for Tskin variations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Toward understanding of differences in current cloud retrievals of ARM ground-based measurements
Chuanfeng Zhao,Shaocheng Xie,Stephen A. Klein,Alain Protat,Matthew D. Shupe,Matthew D. Shupe,Sally A. McFarlane,Jennifer M. Comstock,Julien Delanoë,Min Deng,M. Dunn,Robin J. Hogan,Dong Huang,Michael Jensen,Gerald G. Mace,Renata B. McCoy,Ewan O'Connor,Ewan O'Connor,David D. Turner,Zhien Wang +19 more
TL;DR: The need to further validate current retrieval theories and assumptions and even the development of new retrieval algorithms with more observations under different cloud regimes is suggested.
Journal ArticleDOI
Land–Atmosphere Interactions: The LoCo Perspective
Joseph A. Santanello,Paul A. Dirmeyer,Craig R. Ferguson,Kirsten L. Findell,Ahmed B. Tawfik,Alexis Berg,Michael Ek,Pierre Gentine,Benoit P. Guillod,Chiel C. van Heerwaarden,Joshua K. Roundy,Volker Wulfmeyer +11 more
TL;DR: In this paper, land-atmosphere interactions are a main driver of Earth's surface water and energy budgets; as such, they modulate near-surface climate, including clouds and precipitation, and can in...
Journal ArticleDOI
The Arm Climate Research Facility: A Review of Structure and Capabilities
James H. Mather,Jimmy W. Voyles +1 more
TL;DR: The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility (www.arm.gov) provides atmospheric observations from diverse climatic regimes around the world as mentioned in this paper, including water vapor, cloud/aerosol extinction, and Doppler lidars.
DOE's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program, which has been providing data to advance climate research for 20 years, recently added instruments to expand its capabilities for the study of clouds, aerosol, and precipitation. THE ARM CLIMATE RESEARCH FACILITY A Review of Structure and Capabilities
H James,Jimmy W. Voyles +1 more
TL;DR: The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility (www.arm.gov) provides atmospheric observations from diverse climatic regimes around the world as mentioned in this paper, including water vapor, cloud/aerosol extinction, and Doppler lidars.
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