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Combined Daily Monitoring of Aerosol Optical Depths and Water Vapour Column Content during LACE 98 and LITFASS 98 Experiments

During summer of 1998 two large-scale complex campaigns, LITFASS98 (May 25th to June 22nd) and LACE98 (July 13th to August 14th), took place at the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg (MOL). The aim of both experiments focus on the intensive daily observations of atmospheric conditions and the determination of their fundamental meteorological parameters in the vertical column over Lindenberg (Lindenberg's Column). About 20 German research institutions and addition one from the Netherlands, Austria and Russia participated at the experiments. A wide variety of ground-based instruments was operated in Lindenberg and Falkenberg, including LIDARs, microwave radiometer and radiosondes complemented by tethered balloons and aircraft measurements. For the first time the star- and sunphotometer of MOL were used together with other geophysical tools. The observations with both photometers were carried out practically every day and night except during absolutely overcast conditions. The observed data were processed immediately by a series of programs developed at Pulkovo Observatory (Russia), and the results (daily variations of aerosol optical depths and water vapour column content) were presented at daily briefings. The comparison of these results with radiosonde and microwave radiometer data demonstrated the usefulness of photometer data for the calibration of other ground-based observations and satellite measurements.