Abstract
Due to their importance for Earth’s climate, the formation of clouds is
extensively studied, and especially their formation inside the
atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). Radiosonde is one of the most used
tools for atmospheric research and studying the ABL in particular, since
it is a simple and direct means of measuring a variety of variables.
This, however, come at the account of the data not being temporally or
laterally focused. Remote sensing methods, such as the light detection
and ranging (LiDAR) technique, do not share the radiosonde shortcomings,
but on the other hand, produce data that is interpretable. Despite these
limitations, using data from both types of systems may provide
additional insight. In this work, simultaneous measurements of
radiosondes and ceilometer data acquired during a week at the end of
November are comparatively analyzed and temporally adjusted. A
transformation of the radiosonde’s temperature and humidity data into
simulated optical backscatter signal is implemented using a condensation
model which includes an initial rate limiting step which may be crucial
in activating cloud condensation nuclei. Comparing these transformed
signals to the ceilometer’s measured signals allows studying
condensation processes and deducing the size of the smallest effective
cloud condensation nucleus.