Short Name:
CAL_LID_L2_PSCMask-Prov-V1-11

CALIPSO Lidar Level 2 Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSC) Mask, Provisional V1-11

CAL_LID_L2_PSCMask-Prov-V1-11 is the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) Lidar Level 2 Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSC) Mask, Provisional Version 1-11 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 1-10 to 1-11 to account for a change in the operating system of the CALIPSO production cluster. Data collection for this product is ongoing. This product contains profiles of PSC presence, composition, optical properties, and meteorological information along CALIPSO orbit tracks. The PSC data product ensemble describes the spatial distribution and optical properties of PSC layers observed by the CALIPSO lidar. Each file contains data from all nighttime orbit segments from a single day reported on a 5 km horizontal by 180 m vertical grid. PSC detection is limited to nighttime CALIOP observations because higher levels of background light during daytime significantly reduce the signal-to-noise and, hence, the PSC detection sensitivity. 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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