Atmospheric Integrated Research Monitoring Network
AIRMoN joined NADP in 1992 and currently has 7 sites.
Samples are collected daily within 24 hours of the start of
precipitation, often providing data for all or part of a single storm. Single-storm
data facilitate studies of atmospheric processes and the development and testing of
computer simulations of these processes. Making data available for these studies is
a principal AIRMoN goal.
The AIRMoN sites are equipped with the same wet-only deposition collector and precipitation
gage used at NADP's National Trends Network (NTN) sites. Each site also has a National Weather Service standard gage for
reporting storm total precipitation. Samples are refrigerated after collection and are sent
in chilled insulated shipping containers to the Central Analytical Laboratory (CAL), where they are kept refrigerated until
analysis. Refrigeration retards chemical changes. Chemical analyses and data screening
procedures for AIRMoN and NTN are similar, although low-volume AIRMoN samples are not diluted
to accommodate a complete analysis, as is standard NTN procedure. Another difference is that
during the data review, the CAL assigns a quality rating code before sending AIRMoN data to
the NADP Program Office for final checks and posting on the Web site.