The JEM-EUSO atmosphere monitoring will use an infrared (IR) camera and a Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) with ultraviolet laser to observe the conditions of the atmosphere in the FoV of the EECR telescope.

The main task of the IR camera is to measure the cloud temperature through the radiance received by the detector. The post processing of the collected data will provide information on cloud coverage and cloud top height.
The Italian groups are involved in the study of different approaches for cloud detection and altitude estimation, mainly based on radiative transfer and stereoscopic methods. The radiometric algorithms, typically used by the meteorological community, use the correlation between cloud temperature and height, and atmosphere temperature profiles. The imaging stereoscopic methods exploit the image content of the infrared data, not considering the physical meaning, and relying on the use of multi-views of the same scene.

Due to the specifications of the IR camera design, the same scene will be acquired in different bands, therefore multi-spectral approaches are necessary.

The current activity aims to develop, compare and validate different methods by using available satellite data. It also evaluates the systematic uncertainties and resolutions in the identification of the cloud top. Finally atmospheric models with high spatial resolution are used to precisely evaluate the atmospheric conditions in which the air showers will be observed.