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Capabilities / Instruments

After a 3-day period of side-by-side operations and acceptance testing, the new CL31 ceilometer (foreground) officially replaced the older CT25K model on April 16, 2010 at the SGP site.

CEIL

Ceilometer

Baseline Instrument, External Instrument, Guest

The ceilometer (CEIL) is a remote-sensing instrument that measures cloud height, vertical visibility, and potential backscatter signals by aerosols. It detects up to three cloud layers simultaneously. Operating through a maximum vertical range of 7700 m, the CEIL transmits near-infrared pulses of light and the receiver detects the light scattered back by clouds and precipitation.

Primary Measurements

Handbook Browse Data

Contact

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Damao Zhang
Lead Mentor Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Related Data Announcements

New Tethered Balloon Merged Data Available From Oklahoma Flights

References

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Morris et al. Ceilometer Instrument Handbook. 2016. 10.2172/1036530.

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Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) | Reviewed March 2025