Atmospheric Measurement and Observation Facility (AMOF)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: National Centre for Atmospheric Science
Abstract
The AMF (Atmospheric Measurement Facility) was established in April 2014, following a review of NCAS's ground-based facilities and the service they provided to the community. AMF deploys state-of-the-art instrumentation such as radars, lidars and mass spectrometers, together with ancillary instrumentation and logistics, for a range of projects both ground-based, ship-based and airborne. It supports experiments in the UK and across the world, e.g. India, China and Ghana over the past 2 years. The laboratory facilities provide calibration standards in gas-phase chemistry at York and access to the environmental wind tunnel at Surrey University. The field sites at Weybourne, Cape Verde and the BT Tower (and though close collaboration with the STFC radars, Chilbolton and Capel Dewi) offer the community a range of environments for field experiments where the basic necessities of power, internet and space are provided, alongside standard meteorological measurements. Together, AMF offers to the community far more capacity and expertise than could be maintained at an individual University. It also has a commitment to developing data standards that enable measurements to be easily combined and re-used in future. By continuity of staff and a commitment to maintaining up-to-date provision it ensures that the UK community is able to compete internationally in experimental atmospheric science.
This proposal sets out how AMF plans to continue to provide a facility meeting the needs of the NERC funded research community for high-quality atmospheric field measurements and laboratory data. The facility web pages may be accessed through the portal at www.amf.ac.uk, where the different elements are described in detail and the calendar showing when elements are available may be viewed. Applications are accepted through an on-line form at any time. Each application is assigned to an AMF instrument scientist, who performs a technical evaluation then liaises with the applicant to discuss details of the requirement. Following a successful initial appraisal, a formal offer is made to the PI defining the service to be provided. The main focus of AMF is support for NERC grant-funded projects, and priority is given to applications that are submitted alongside a JeS application. The next level of priority is given to applications for NERC NC science, NERC-funded PhD students and NERC grants where the application is received after the grant is awarded. If there is spare capacity, AMF will offer its services to other scientific organisations (like the Met Office) or commercial users, from whom suitable costs will be recovered. Generally, NERC applicants receive 2 months instrument scientist time for each project and are only asked to pay additional T&S and consumables associated with a deployment. Should a proposal require more than 2 months IS time the PI will need to find the necessary excess staff funding.
AMF's core rationale is the delivery of high-quality datasets to the customer, and the nature of the dataset provided by each instrument or experiment is defined clearly on the AMF web site. Core data are supplied within 2 months of the end of an experiment; the delay allows for proper quality assurance and quality control. Derived products may also be provided through discussion with the IS but these can take longer as they rely on the scientist's individual expertise. AMF is working with the community and with CEDA to develop data standards that make all our data accessible and re-usable by future users. There has been particularly close collaboration with CFARR and MSTRF in this project which puts us on the road to the merger of the three facilities in 2020.
This proposal sets out how AMF plans to continue to provide a facility meeting the needs of the NERC funded research community for high-quality atmospheric field measurements and laboratory data. The facility web pages may be accessed through the portal at www.amf.ac.uk, where the different elements are described in detail and the calendar showing when elements are available may be viewed. Applications are accepted through an on-line form at any time. Each application is assigned to an AMF instrument scientist, who performs a technical evaluation then liaises with the applicant to discuss details of the requirement. Following a successful initial appraisal, a formal offer is made to the PI defining the service to be provided. The main focus of AMF is support for NERC grant-funded projects, and priority is given to applications that are submitted alongside a JeS application. The next level of priority is given to applications for NERC NC science, NERC-funded PhD students and NERC grants where the application is received after the grant is awarded. If there is spare capacity, AMF will offer its services to other scientific organisations (like the Met Office) or commercial users, from whom suitable costs will be recovered. Generally, NERC applicants receive 2 months instrument scientist time for each project and are only asked to pay additional T&S and consumables associated with a deployment. Should a proposal require more than 2 months IS time the PI will need to find the necessary excess staff funding.
AMF's core rationale is the delivery of high-quality datasets to the customer, and the nature of the dataset provided by each instrument or experiment is defined clearly on the AMF web site. Core data are supplied within 2 months of the end of an experiment; the delay allows for proper quality assurance and quality control. Derived products may also be provided through discussion with the IS but these can take longer as they rely on the scientist's individual expertise. AMF is working with the community and with CEDA to develop data standards that make all our data accessible and re-usable by future users. There has been particularly close collaboration with CFARR and MSTRF in this project which puts us on the road to the merger of the three facilities in 2020.
Planned Impact
AMF impacts through direct impact by the Facility, support for the NCAS science and impact programmes, and through projects supported in the research community.
The direct impacts of AMF arise from activities including:
a) Outreach: This can be part of NCAS and NERC's overall public engagement programme, or a collaboration with partner Universities and outside charities. AMF's measurements inform the public about our science and allow us to question their understanding of key scientific concepts.
b) Training: AMF's aerosol measurement course is a partnership with TSI Inc. and accepts both commercial and academic participants. We aim to increase the provision of such courses over the next 5 years, continuing the model of working with an industrial partner.
c) Provision of data from our instruments: For example, the AMF wind profiler is based in Cardington or Capel Dewi between campaigns, and its data provided to the Met Office for use in forecasting while measurements from the Iceland Atmospheric Observatory provide observations of volcanic ash for the Icelandic Met Office (with whom NCAS has a Memorandum of Understanding) and the London VAAC (Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre) based at the Met Office.
d) Deployment of AMF equipment for commercial customers: Although carried out on a commercial basis, such deployments result in AMF's expertise being transferred to the benefit of the customer. AMF only has limited capacity to support such deployments but we anticipate roughly one a year if past trends continue. Recent examples are the deployment of the X band radar to Lossiemouth for the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, and of the radar wind profiler to Heathrow in support of a Met Office project for better fog forecasting.
e) Access to AMF field sites and calibration sites to commercial organisations. Over the course of the next 5 years AMF calibration facilities will work towards obtaining UKAS certification as government accredited calibration facilities.
f) Support for the NCAS science and impact programmes: AMF will support FAAM in projects such as measuring methane gas leaks from oil and gas wells in the North Sea, and readiness for emergency response in a future volcanic ash & gas emergency. AMF scientists will contribute their specialist expertise to applications such as monitoring fracking sites in North Yorkshire for methane emission, and advising the aerospace industry on appropriate measurement standards for aerosol emissions from engines.
g) Community working groups organised with the NCAS underpinning programme and FAAM: for example in areas of UAVs, lidar remote sensing or atmospheric aerosol measurements. Such activities involve non-academic public sector organisations like the Met Office and commercial manufacturers and so spread best practice and provide community networking opportunities.
h) Emergency response: In the event of national emergency, for exampe volcanic ash & gas cloud, major fires and gas leaks, AMF's capabilities will be deployed to meet national need in support of NCAS's NPG activities.
The direct impacts of AMF arise from activities including:
a) Outreach: This can be part of NCAS and NERC's overall public engagement programme, or a collaboration with partner Universities and outside charities. AMF's measurements inform the public about our science and allow us to question their understanding of key scientific concepts.
b) Training: AMF's aerosol measurement course is a partnership with TSI Inc. and accepts both commercial and academic participants. We aim to increase the provision of such courses over the next 5 years, continuing the model of working with an industrial partner.
c) Provision of data from our instruments: For example, the AMF wind profiler is based in Cardington or Capel Dewi between campaigns, and its data provided to the Met Office for use in forecasting while measurements from the Iceland Atmospheric Observatory provide observations of volcanic ash for the Icelandic Met Office (with whom NCAS has a Memorandum of Understanding) and the London VAAC (Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre) based at the Met Office.
d) Deployment of AMF equipment for commercial customers: Although carried out on a commercial basis, such deployments result in AMF's expertise being transferred to the benefit of the customer. AMF only has limited capacity to support such deployments but we anticipate roughly one a year if past trends continue. Recent examples are the deployment of the X band radar to Lossiemouth for the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, and of the radar wind profiler to Heathrow in support of a Met Office project for better fog forecasting.
e) Access to AMF field sites and calibration sites to commercial organisations. Over the course of the next 5 years AMF calibration facilities will work towards obtaining UKAS certification as government accredited calibration facilities.
f) Support for the NCAS science and impact programmes: AMF will support FAAM in projects such as measuring methane gas leaks from oil and gas wells in the North Sea, and readiness for emergency response in a future volcanic ash & gas emergency. AMF scientists will contribute their specialist expertise to applications such as monitoring fracking sites in North Yorkshire for methane emission, and advising the aerospace industry on appropriate measurement standards for aerosol emissions from engines.
g) Community working groups organised with the NCAS underpinning programme and FAAM: for example in areas of UAVs, lidar remote sensing or atmospheric aerosol measurements. Such activities involve non-academic public sector organisations like the Met Office and commercial manufacturers and so spread best practice and provide community networking opportunities.
h) Emergency response: In the event of national emergency, for exampe volcanic ash & gas cloud, major fires and gas leaks, AMF's capabilities will be deployed to meet national need in support of NCAS's NPG activities.
Organisations
Publications
Squires F
(2020)
Measurements of traffic-dominated pollutant emissions in a Chinese megacity
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Speak T
(2020)
A new instrument for time-resolved measurement of HO<sub>2</sub> radicals
in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
Song J
(2021)
Natural ventilation in London: Towards energy-efficient and healthy buildings
in Building and Environment
Sommariva R
(2018)
Seasonal and geographical variability of nitryl chloride and its precursors in Northern Europe
in Atmospheric Science Letters
Smith K
(2019)
An improved low-power measurement of ambient NO<sub>2</sub> and O<sub>3</sub> combining electrochemical sensor clusters and machine learning
in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
Slater E
(2020)
Elevated levels of OH observed in haze events during wintertime in central Beijing
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Shaw MF
(2018)
Photo-tautomerization of acetaldehyde as a photochemical source of formic acid in the troposphere.
in Nature communications
Shaw JT
(2020)
Methane flux from flowback operations at a shale gas site.
in Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association (1995)
Shaw J
(2018)
A self-consistent, multivariate method for the determination of gas-phase rate coefficients, applied to reactions of atmospheric VOCs and the hydroxyl radical
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Shah A
(2019)
A Near-Field Gaussian Plume Inversion Flux Quantification Method, Applied to Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Sampling
in Atmosphere
Shah A
(2020)
Testing the near-field Gaussian plume inversion flux quantification technique using unmanned aerial vehicle sampling
in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
Shah A
(2020)
Unmanned aerial vehicle observations of cold venting from exploratory hydraulic fracturing in the United Kingdom
in Environmental Research Communications
Schäfler A
(2018)
The North Atlantic Waveguide and Downstream Impact Experiment
in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Schultz D
(2019)
100 Years Later: Reflecting on Alfred Wegener's Contributions to Tornado Research in Europe
in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Schultz D
(2018)
A Global Climatology of Tropospheric Inertial Instability
in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
Schultz D
(2019)
100 Years Later: Reflecting on Alfred Wegener's Contributions to Tornado Research in Europe
in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Santos J
(2019)
Using Large-Eddy Simulation and Wind-Tunnel Data to Investigate Peak-to-Mean Concentration Ratios in an Urban Environment
in Boundary-Layer Meteorology
Santos F
(2018)
Biomass burning emission disturbances of isoprene oxidation in a tropical forest
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Ryder C
(2018)
Coarse-mode mineral dust size distributions, composition and optical properties from AER-D aircraft measurements over the tropical eastern Atlantic
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Robson J
(2018)
Recent multivariate changes in the North Atlantic climate system, with a focus on 2005-2016
in International Journal of Climatology
Roberts A
(2021)
Nowcasting for Africa : advances, potential and value
in Weather
Riddick S
(2019)
Methane emissions from oil and gas platforms in the North Sea
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Reyes-Villegas E
(2018)
Simultaneous aerosol mass spectrometry and chemical ionisation mass spectrometry measurements during a biomass burning event in the UK: insights into nitrate chemistry
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Renfrew I
(2020)
An evaluation of surface meteorology and fluxes over the Iceland and Greenland Seas in ERA5 reanalysis: The impact of sea ice distribution
in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society
Renfrew I
(2019)
The Iceland Greenland Seas Project
in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Reeves C
(2021)
Observations of speciated isoprene nitrates in Beijing: implications for isoprene chemistry
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Ramonet M
(2020)
The fingerprint of the summer 2018 drought in Europe on ground-based atmospheric CO2 measurements.
in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
Purvis RM
(2019)
Effects of 'pre-fracking' operations on ambient air quality at a shale gas exploration site in rural North Yorkshire, England.
in The Science of the total environment
Price H
(2018)
Atmospheric Ice-Nucleating Particles in the Dusty Tropical Atlantic
in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
Plummer D
(2018)
Radar-Derived Structural and Precipitation Characteristics of ZDR Columns within Warm-Season Convection over the United Kingdom
in Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology
Pizzuti A
(2021)
Signatures of large peak current lightning strokes during an unusually intense sprite-producing thunderstorm in southern England
in Atmospheric Research
Pitt J
(2019)
Assessing London CO<sub>2</sub>, CH<sub>4</sub> and CO emissions using aircraft measurements and dispersion modelling
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Pickering B
(2021)
Evaluation of Multiple Precipitation Sensor Designs for Precipitation Rate and Depth, Drop Size and Velocity Distribution, and Precipitation Type
in Journal of Hydrometeorology
Pickering B
(2021)
Improving Observations of Precipitation Type at the Surface: A 5-year Verification of a Radar-derived Product from the United Kingdom Met Office.
in Journal of Hydrometeorology
O'Shea S
(2021)
Characterising optical array particle imaging probes: implications for small-ice-crystal observations
in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
Nøst TH
(2018)
Low concentrations of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in air at Cape Verde.
in The Science of the total environment
Nisbet E
(2020)
Methane Mitigation: Methods to Reduce Emissions, on the Path to the Paris Agreement
in Reviews of Geophysics
Newland M
(2021)
Low-NO atmospheric oxidation pathways in a polluted megacity
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Nelson B
(2021)
In situ ozone production is highly sensitive to volatile organic compounds in Delhi, India
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Neely III R
(2021)
Radar Applications in Northern Scotland (RAiNS)
in Journal of Hydrometeorology
Naakka T
(2019)
The Impact of Radiosounding Observations on Numerical Weather Prediction Analyses in the Arctic
in Geophysical Research Letters
Muñoz C
(2020)
A Midlatitude Climatology and Interannual Variability of 200- and 500-hPa Cut-Off Lows
in Journal of Climate
Morrison D
(2020)
Quantifying bioaerosol concentrations in dust clouds through online UV-LIF and mass spectrometry measurements at the Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Description | School visit |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | After school club STEM session about the atmopshere, for pupils at Bledlow Ridge School in Buckinghamshire. The pupils involved do not speak English as their first language, and the teacher requested an in-person session to support greater engagement in the topic and the session. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | School visit |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Lindsay Bennett (meteorologist and AMOF Radar Instrument Scientist) was invited to talk about her job to Year 3 students at Spring Bank Primary School in Leeds. Her careers story session supported their Wild Weather theme that term. Lindsay showed photos and animations about clouds, making observations with radar, and talked about storms and tornadoes. They made clouds and tornadoes in bottles, to demonstrate some weather science principles. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |