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.
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.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
27 Aug 2024
Research article |
| 27 Aug 2024
| 27 Aug 2024
ampycloud: an open-source algorithm to determine cloud base heights and sky coverage fractions from ceilometer data
Frédéric P. A. Vogt
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology – MeteoSwiss, Chemin de l'Aérologie 1, 1530 Payerne, Switzerland
Loris Foresti
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology – MeteoSwiss, Via ai Monti 146a, 6605 Locarno-Monti, Switzerland
Daniel Regenass
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology – MeteoSwiss, Chemin de l'Aérologie 1, 1530 Payerne, Switzerland
Sophie Réthoré
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology – MeteoSwiss, Operation Center 1, 8058 Zurich Airport, Kloten, Switzerland
Néstor Tarin Burriel
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology – MeteoSwiss, Operation Center 1, 8058 Zurich Airport, Kloten, Switzerland
Mervyn Bibby
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology – MeteoSwiss, Operation Center 1, 8058 Zurich Airport, Kloten, Switzerland
Przemysław Juda
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology – MeteoSwiss, Via ai Monti 146a, 6605 Locarno-Monti, Switzerland
Simone Balmelli
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology – MeteoSwiss, Via ai Monti 146a, 6605 Locarno-Monti, Switzerland
Tobias Hanselmann
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology – MeteoSwiss, Operation Center 1, 8058 Zurich Airport, Kloten, Switzerland
Pieter du Preez
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology – MeteoSwiss, Operation Center 1, 8058 Zurich Airport, Kloten, Switzerland
Dirk Furrer
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology – MeteoSwiss, Operation Center 1, 8058 Zurich Airport, Kloten, Switzerland
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Loris Foresti, Bernat Puigdomènech Treserras, Daniele Nerini, Aitor Atencia, Marco Gabella, Ioannis V. Sideris, Urs Germann, and Isztar Zawadzki
Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 31, 259–286, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-31-259-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-31-259-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We compared two ways of defining the phase space of low-dimensional attractors describing the evolution of radar precipitation fields. The first defines the phase space by the domain-scale statistics of precipitation fields, such as their mean, spatial and temporal correlations. The second uses principal component analysis to account for the spatial distribution of precipitation. To represent different climates, radar archives over the United States and the Swiss Alpine region were used.
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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.
ampycloud is a new algorithm developed at MeteoSwiss to characterize the height and sky coverage...
