CCRES-DE

CCRES-DE provides support and state-of-the-art expertise for ground-based microwave radiometer (MWR) operation, data quality control and quality assurance, retrieval development as well as the testing of new instruments. Scientists at UCol have been involved for more than 20 years in the development and deployment of operational, network suitable MWR. They have defined and evaluated MWR calibration procedures, developed retrieval algorithms and have tested the un-manned 24/7 operability.

Reference instruments of CCRES-DE as well as an ACTRIS cloud remote sensing national facility are located at the JOYCE (Jülich Observatory for Cloud Evolution, http://joyce.cloud), where a suite of ground-based remote sensing instruments is installed to continuously monitor the evolution of the atmospheric boundary layer and the tightly connected life cycle of clouds and precipitation. JOYCE is an essential part of CPEX-Lab (Cloud and Precipitation Exploratory Laboratory), a competence centre of the Geoverbund ABC/J which connects the geoscience research and education at the universities RWTH Aachen, Bonn, and Cologne and the Research Centre Jülich.

Instruments operated at JOYCE include three cloud radars, two microwave radiometers, a Doppler lidar, two ceilometers, an infrared spectrometer, a sun photometer, several precipitation observation devices and high-quality radiation observations.

CCRES-DE RPOs (Research Performing Organizations):

The University of Cologne (UCol) is one of the largest universities in Germany, consisting of six faculties  with nearly 5000 academic staff. About 50 000 students are enrolled at UCol in more than 300 course  programs. The total budget of UCol in 2016 was 785 M€ (208 M€ third-party funding). The Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology which is hosting the CCRES-DE unit is part of the faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences with 144 professors at six departments.