CoURAGE! The Coast-Urban-Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment

Understanding the mechanisms governing the urban atmospheric environment is critical for understanding urban climate change, air quality and associated mitigation and adaptation measures. The Coast-Urban-Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment (CoURAGE) studies the complex coastal environment surrounding the U.S. MidAtlantic region city of Baltimore via a deployment of the Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mobile Facility (AMF1). AMF1 began operations in Baltimore on 1 December, 2024 and will continue operations through November of 2025. The deployment complements the Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC), an urban integrated field laboratory designed to advance our ability to simulate and project urban climate conditions.

CoURAGE creates a four-node regional atmospheric observatory network including Baltimore and its three surrounding environments - rural, urban and bay. The AMF1 deployment includes a main site in the city of Baltimore and ancillary sites in rural Maryland, and on an island within the Chesapeake Bay. AMF1 complements a Howard University and Maryland Department of the Environment atmospheric observatory southwest of the city.

CoURAGE investigators are studying the interactions among the earth’s surface, the atmospheric boundary layer, aerosols and atmospheric composition, clouds, radiation and precipitation. Observations show striking and persistent differences in the surface energy balance, atmospheric composition and boundary layer clouds across this gradient, in addition to mesoscale flows such as bay breezes and low-level jets. This presentation will describe the CoURAGE science plan, present the multi-variate observational record emerging from AMF1 and BSEC, and describe our work to date to simulate this complex coastal environment.

We hypothesize that accurate simulation of processes that generate these gradients are essential to simulating the urban atmospheric environment. We are working to advance the ability of our numerical modeling systems to simulate this integrated coast-urban-rural system and thus improve the scientific basis for guiding coastal urban climate adaptation and mitigation strategies.