Towards a ceilometer network in the US: A report on initial activities, progress, and data examples

There are a number of sites and networks involved in monitoring the aerosol loading in the troposphere and transport of pollution. These include lidar networks like the European EARLINET the Asian Dust Network, NASA's Micro Pulse Lidar Network (MPLNET), the ceilometers network of the German Meteorological Service, and the current GALION initiative of the WMO. These activities and network sites demonstrate the high-quality and mature stages that lidar profiling has reached. In the US, there doesn't exist an active lidar netweork to date. However, the NWS has initiated a plan of study for utilizing the more than 1000 lidar ceilometers as a network. Recent investigations have reported correlations of lidar extinction by ceilometers to measurements of aerosol (PM₁₀) concentration and evolution. We plan to report on the activities and plans in progress as well as examples of data from ceilometers during mesoscale events.