The U.S. DOE ARM User Facility Establishes a New Site for Studies of Land-Aerosol-Cloud Interactions in the Southeastern U.S.

Journal Article · Tue Nov 04 00:00:00 EST 2025 · Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-25-0072.1· OSTI ID:3009131

Kuang, Chongai ^[1]; Giangrande, Scott E. ^[1]; Serbin, Shawn P. ^[2]; Campbell, Patty ^[3]; Elsaesser, Gregory S. ^[4]; Gentine, Pierre ^[5]; Heus, Thijs ^[6]; Hickmon, Nicki L. ^[3]; Oue, Mariko ^[7]; Peters, John M. ^[8]; Raghunathan, Girish N. ^[6]; Ritsche, Michael T. ^[3]; Smith, James N. ^[9]; Spychala, Mark ^[3]; Steiner, Allison L. ^[10]; Theisen, Adam ^[3]

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1. Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
2. Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
3. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
4. Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
5. Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)
6. Cleveland State Univ., Cleveland, OH (United States)
7. Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States)
8. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
9. Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
10. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility has established a new site in the Bankhead National Forest (BNF) in northern Alabama that will gather data on how clouds, the land surface, and aerosols interact at a hierarchy of scales important to understanding and simulating the Earth system. Starting its operations in October 2024, the BNF site provides a multi-year opportunity for scientists to unravel complex land-atmosphere interactions. A suite of ground-based sensors, elevated tower-based instrumentation, and aerial facilities will enable scientists to investigate those interactions from within the canopy to the clouds. The Southeastern United States was recommended by the DOE ARM and its collaborators in the broader community as an important region to address their common scientific questions given the region’s abundant surface-forced convective clouds and mesoscale convective systems that pose ongoing challenges in Earth system models. The region is also home to significant terrain complexity and land-use heterogeneity that will unleash new understanding of anthropogenic and biogenic aerosol processes, boundary-layer aerosol-cloud interactions, and the interactions between the terrestrial ecosystem and coupled aerosol-cloud-radiation processes.

• Research Organization: Atmospheric Radiation Measurement User Facility; Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Cleveland State Univ., Cleveland, OH (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth & Environmental Systems Science (EESS)
• Contributing Organization: PNNL, BNL, ANL, ORNL
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0012704; SC0025648
• OSTI ID: 3009131
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 3013934
• Journal Information: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Journal Name: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society; ISSN 0003-0007; ISSN 1520-0477
• Publisher: American Meteorological Society
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English