Description

CAL_LID_L3_GEWEX_Cloud-Standard-V2-00_V2-00 are Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) Lidar (CALIOP) Level 3 Cloud products for the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Cloud Assessment. The Lidar Level 3 GEWEX Cloud product reports global distributions of cloud occurrence and cloud top on a 2-dimentional (2D) spatial grid. Cloud top is represented as cloud top temperature, cloud top pressure and geometric cloud top height. The product is produced following the general guidance of the GEWEX Cloud Assessment project. The cloud occurrence is estimated at three altitude levels, i.e., high, middle and low levels separated by cloud top pressure thresholds 440 hectopascal (hPa) and 860 hPa. It is also described by different cloud phase: water clouds, ice clouds and ice clouds at high level. Though the contents are the same as the CALIPSO cloud product reported to the GEWEX website, the data structure is slightly different. Instead of reporting each cloud property as yearly files, this product includes all cloud properties as monthly files. CALIPSO was a partnership between NASA and the French Space Agency, CNES. CALIPSO was launched on April 28, 2006 to study the many roles played by clouds and aerosols in Earth’s climate and weather. It flew in the international A-Train constellation for coincident Earth observations from launch until September 13, 2018, when CALIPSO began lowering its orbit from 705 km to 688 km (428 miles) above the Earth to resume formation flying with CloudSat as part of the “C-Train”. The CALIPSO satellite carried three remote sensing instruments: the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), the Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR), and the Wide Field-of-View Camera (WFC). By mutual agreement between NASA and CNES, the CALIPSO science mission concluded on August 1, 2023.

DOI

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Citation Styles for this Dataset

Resources and Documentation

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Earthdata Forum

PROJECT HOME PAGE

CALIPSO Project Home Page

French (CNES) CALIPSO Home Page

VIEW RELATED INFORMATION

DATA CITATION GUIDELINES

• How to cite ASDC data

PRODUCT QUALITY ASSESSMENT

• CALIPSO Data Description and Quality Summary – CALIOP Level 3 GEWEX Cloud

PRODUCT USAGE

• CALIPSO Data Products Catalog - Release 5.00

USER'S GUIDE

• CALIPSO Data User's Guide - FAQ
• CALIPSO Data User's Guide - Payload
• CALIPSO Data User's Guide - Peer Reviewed Bibliography

Keywords

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