The Jülich ObservatorY for Cloud Evolution (JOYCE) is operated jointly by the University of Cologne, the Research Centre Jülich. JOYCE was originally operated in the frame of the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre “Patterns in Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere-Systems: Monitoring, Modelling and Data Assimilation” (TR32). Today, JOYCE is part of the Cloud and Precipitation Exploration Laboratory (CPEX-LAB), a competence centre within the Geoverbund ABC/J.

The official site is http://joyce.cloud or http://www.geomet.uni-koeln.de/index.php?id=1082&L=1.

JOYCE instrumentation aims to observe spatial and temporal variability of atmospheric water cycle variables.

Specific goals are

• to disentangle water vapor variations due to advection and to local surface influence
• to better understand the development of boundary layer clouds
• to analyse cloud radiation interaction
• to observe precipitation formation

Most instruments are located on the roof of the Institute for Energy and Climate Research - Troposphere IEK-8 at the Research Centre Jülich which is embedded in an agricultural dominated landscape.

• Latitude: 50°54'30.77“ N = 50.908547°N
• Longitude: 6°24'48.73” E = 6.413536°E
• Altitude: 111 m asl (20 m above ground)
• Webcam
• WIGOS ID : 0-276-0-10508

• Microwave Radiometer HATPRO - TOPHAT

• Cloud Radar JOYRAD-10 (X-Band)
• Cloud Radar JOYRAD-35 (Ka-Band)
• Cloud Radar JOYRAD-94 (W-Band)

• Ceilometer
  • Ceilometer Jenoptik/Lufft CHM15k
  • Ceilometer Vaisala CT25K
• Doppler wind lidar

• Micro Rain Radar MRR
• Disdrometer
• Pluviometer

• Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer AERI
• Multifilter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer MFRSR
• Total Sky Imager TSI-AXIS
• Sun photometer
• Broadband radiation observations
• Photovoltaic modules

• CPEX-Lab Polarimetric X-Band Precipitation Radar Sophienhöhe and composite with Bonn
• Meteorology at 120 m tower of FZ Jülich

JOYCE provides a number of resources, which characterize the thermodynamic state of the atmospheric column including vertical profiles of temperarture, humidity and cloud macro- and microphysical properties as well as the aerosol loading. The data is freely accessible for scientific and educational purposes and may be obtained through direct contact to Bernhard Pospichal.

If you use JOYCE data in publications, please use following phrase in the acknowledgement:

“JOYCE data were provided by the Cloud and Precipitation Exploration Laboratory (CPEX-LAB, http://cpex-lab.de), a competence centre within the Geoverbund ABC/J.”

Quicklook browser
Quicklooks of Cloudnet processed measurements and products on Cloudnet database (select Jülich on the left)

enter here