A Beautiful Planet calls Earth's atmosphere "a delicate cocoon of air that shields us from our star's radiation." Of course, the atmosphere doesn't completely block electromagnetic radiation from the Sun; without some sunlight reaching the surface, plants could not harvest the Sun's energy, and practically no life as we know it could exist. The atmosphere's ozone layer does filter out much of the harmful ultraviolet light (or "UV rays") produced by the Sun. UV rays can cause skin cancer, and catastrophic damage to the ozone layer may have contributed to Earth's most extensive mass extinction of species ever, the End-Permian extinction (also known
Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility (ARM Climate Research Facility) is a United States Department of Energy scientific user facility for the study of global climate change by the national and international research community. The ARM Climate Research Facility consists of global observation sites and research aircraft that measure radiative properties of the atmosphere, particularly cloud and aerosol formation processes. Continuous data from these sites, as well as supplemental data obtained through intensive field research campaigns, are available to scientists online through the ARM Data Archive. ARM is collaboratively managed by nine DOE