The Southern Great Plains 1997 (SGP97) Hydrology Experiment originated from an interdisciplinary investigation, "Soil Moisture Mapping at Satellite Temporal and Spatial Scales" (PI: Thomas J. Jackson, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville, MD) selected under the NASA Research Announcement 95-MTPE-03. The ARM Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) cloud height dataset is one of several datasets provided for the GEWEX Continental-Scale International Project (GCIP) Near-Surface Observing Period (NESOB) 1997 project. This dataset contains cloud height data collected using the ARMCART SGP Belfort Laser Ceilometer (BLC) Model 7013C and the ARMCART SGP MicroPulse Lidar (MPL) located at station E13: Lamont Central Facility 1 (CF1). This dataset contains data from these two instruments located within the NESOB 1997 domain (94.5 W to 100.5 W longitude and 34 N to 39 N latitude) for the NESOB 1997 time period (01 April 1997 through 31 March 1998). The data in this dataset were formed by extracting 30 minute cloud height data from 60 second BLC data in netCDF format. A zero for the first cloud layer signifies no clouds detected within the limit of the instrument field of view and range. A cloud ht of zero for the second and third cloud layers indicates an unknown cloud height (i.e. the ceiliometer can't see through lower clouds). These zeros are reported as "0.00000 U" in the data. The ARMCART Belfort Laser Ceilometer data contains eight metadata parameters and eight data parameters and flags. The metadata parameters describe the date, network, station and location at which the data were collected. Data values are collected at the time of observation. All times are UTC. Resources in this dataset:Resource Title: GeoData catalog record. File Name: Web Page, url: https://geodata.nal.usda.gov/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/SGP97NESOBblc_mpl_jjm_2015-05-07_0946