ARM User Facility

🚨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.

✨ 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.

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.

📢 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