Short Name:
CAL_LID_L2_05kmCLay-Prov-V3-41

CALIPSO Lidar Level 2 5 km Cloud Layer, Provisional V3-41

CAL_LID_L2_05kmCLay-Prov-V3-41 is the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) Lidar Level 2 5 km Cloud Layer, Provisional Version 3-41 data product. Data for this product was collected using the CALIPSO Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument. The version of this product was changed from 3-40 to 3-41 to account for a change in the operating system of the CALIPSO production cluster. This product reports cloud products at identical 5km horizontal resolutions, and includes a full complement of diagnostic and quality assurance parameters. Major algorithm updates include a new approach to determining cloud thermodynamic phase; greatly improved separation of boundary layer clouds and aerosols; refinements to the layer base determination scheme that enable more accurate estimates of aerosol optical depth; and the use of five-dimensional probability distribution functions to better distinguish clouds from aerosols. Uncertainty estimates are now provided for all cloud properties reported in the Level 2 data products. Products include three V-data record types (i.e., metadata). CALIPSO was launched on April 28, 2006 to study the impact of clouds and aerosols on the Earth's radiation budget and climate. It flies in the international A-Train constellation for coincident Earth observations. The CALIPSO satellite comprises three instruments, CALIOP, Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR), and Wide Field Camera (WFC). CALIPSO is a joint satellite mission between NASA and the French Agency, CNES.

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