ACRF Archive User Meeting Summary

On October 30, 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility (ACRF) sponsored an all-day workshop to assess the status of the ACRF Archive. Focus areas included usability of current functions, plans for revised functions, proposals for new functions, and an overarching discussion of new ideas. Although 13 scientists familiar with ACRF and the ARM Program were invited to the workshop, only 10 scientists were available to attend the workshop. ACRF consists of the infrastructure that was developed to support the ARM Program and includes the ACRF Archive (previously called the ARM Archive). The scientists who participated in the meeting ranged from those who used the Archive frequently to those who seldom or never had accessed the Archive. The group was spread across disciplines, i.e. modelers, conservationists, and others from universities and government laboratories. A few of the participants were funded by the ARM Program, but most were not funded currently by ARM. During the past year, several improvements were made to the ACRF Archive to link it with the ARM/ACRF web pages, add a shopping cart feature, and expand on search parameters. Additional modifications have been proposed and prototypes of these proposals weremore » made available for the participants. The participants were given several exercises to do before the meeting, and their feedback was requested to help identify potential problems and shortcomings with the existing structure and to recommend improvements.« less