ampycloud: an open-source algorithm to determine cloud base heights and sky coverage fractions from ceilometer data

Vogt, Frédéric P. A.; Foresti, Loris; Regenass, Daniel; Réthoré, Sophie; Tarin Burriel, Néstor; Bibby, Mervyn; Juda, Przemysław; Balmelli, Simone; Hanselmann, Tobias; du Preez, Pieter; Furrer, Dirk

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4891-2024

Articles | Volume 17, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4891-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-4891-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 16

Research article

|

27 Aug 2024

Research article |

| 27 Aug 2024

ampycloud: an open-source algorithm to determine cloud base heights and sky coverage fractions from ceilometer data

Frédéric P. A. Vogt, Loris Foresti, Daniel Regenass, Sophie Réthoré, Néstor Tarin Burriel, Mervyn Bibby, Przemysław Juda, Simone Balmelli, Tobias Hanselmann, Pieter du Preez, and Dirk Furrer

Data sets

ampycloud: example datasets (v2.0.0) Frédéric P. A. Vogt https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10171151

Model code and software

MeteoSwiss/ampycloud: Version v2.0.0 Frédéric P. A. Vogt et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8399683

Pandas-Dev/Pandas: Pandas The Pandas Development Team https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4452601

Metsymb Frédéric P. A. Vogt https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8302082

Visualization with Python (v3.9.2) The Matplotlib Development Team: Matplotlib https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.592536

scikit-learn/scikit-learn: Scikit-learn 1.5.1 Olivier Grisel et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.591564

scipy/scipy: SciPy 1.14.1 Ralf Gommers et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.595738

statsmodels/statsmodels: Release 0.14.2 Josef Perktold et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.593847

Array Programming with NumPy (https://github.com/numpy/numpy/) Charles R. Harris et al. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2

Short summary

ampycloud is a new algorithm developed at MeteoSwiss to characterize the height and sky coverage fraction of cloud layers above aerodromes via ceilometer data. This algorithm was devised as part of a larger effort to fully automate the creation of meteorological aerodrome reports (METARs) at Swiss civil airports. The ampycloud algorithm is implemented as a Python package that is made publicly available to the community under the 3-Clause BSD license.