Atmospheric considerations for the CTA site search

Abstract: The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the next high-energy gamma-ray observatory. Selection of the sites, one in each hemisphere, is not obvious since several factors have to be taken into account. Among them, and probably the most crucial, are the atmospheric conditions. Since July 2012, the site working group has deployed automatic ground based instrumentation (ATMOSCOPE) on all the candidate sites. Due to the limited time span available from ground based data, long term weather forecast models become necessary tools for site characterization. It is then of prime importance to validate the models by comparing it to the ATMOSCOPE measurements. We will describe the sources of data (ATMOSCOPE, weather forecasting model and satellite data) for the site evaluation and how they will be used and combined.