Preliminary Studies of the Marine Boundary Layer from the ARM ENA Azores Site

The Eastern North Atlantic (ENA) ARM Site in the Azores provides a unique continuous data stream, particularly valuable for studying clouds and aerosols in the marine boundary layer (MBL). The ENA site hosts a larger suite of instruments than the 2009-2010 CAP-MBL project of the same location, including more types of radar and more thorough aerosol measurement capability. The location in the Azores allows for sampling and analysis of a variety of maritime meteorlogical and aerosol conditions. It also provides a continuous dataset for comparing MBL structure, cloudiness, and aerosol properties with large scale models such as GCMs. Here we utilize first operational data streams available from the new site. Our analysis focuses on cloud morphology, MBL turbulence using vertical velocity variance from doppler lidar, precipitation characteristics of MBL low-cloud regimes, and aerosol properties. We compare preliminary ENA climatologies with CAP-MBL, and examine case-studies of particular interest.