“Understanding the mechanisms governing the urban atmospheric environment is critical for informing urban populations regarding the impacts of climate change and associated mitigation and adaptation measures. Earth system (climate and weather) models have not yet been adapted to provide accurate predictions of climate and weather variability within cities, nor do they provide well-tested representations of the impacts of urban systems on the atmospheric environment. These limitations are largely due to limited field data available for testing and development of these models.
We will deploy an ARM mobile facility to the Mid-Atlantic region surrounding the city of Baltimore for the Coast-Urban-Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment (CoURAGE). This deployment will create a four-node regional atmospheric observatory network including Baltimore and its three primary surrounding environments – rural, urban, and bay.
CoURAGE investigators will study the interactions among the Earth’s surface, atmospheric boundary layer, aerosols and atmospheric composition, clouds, radiation, and precipitation at each site, and examine how the spatial gradients across the region interact to create the climate conditions in Baltimore.”