Combined active and passive remote sensing of the properties of cirrus clouds

Since October 1987, a uniquely extensive high cloud dataset has been collected from the University of Utah Facility for Atmospheric Remote Sensing (FARS). The measurements, which currently total over 3000-h of ruby (0.694 /spl mu/m) lidar data, have been directed toward (i) basic cloud physics research, (ii) improving satellite-based and GCM cloud property predictions by providing climatologically representative local cloud statistics, and (iii) creating parameterizations of the mean cirrus cloud radiative properties.