Global Cloud Optical Thickness from ADEOS-II Satellite

Version 2 data from the GLI sensor on Japan's ADEOS-II satellite provides global measurements of water cloud optical thickness. The dataset aggregates observations into 16-day and 1-month statistical periods at a 1/4-degree spatial resolution. JAXA produced this dataset for monitoring environmental changes, with the last update recorded in October 2003.

Use Cases

• Analyze spatial patterns of cloud optical thickness from the sum, square sum, max, and min pixel statistics.
• Validate climate model cloud parameterizations using the 16-day binned global data.
• Study seasonal cloud property changes by comparing consecutive 16-day statistical periods.
• Correlate cloud optical thickness with other satellite-derived parameters using the EQR map projection for alignment.

Strengths

• Global spatial coverage for each generation unit.
• Data includes multiple statistical aggregates (sum, square sum, max, min) per pixel.
• Product is derived from specific GLI sensor channels (13, 30, 35) for retrieval.

Limitations

• Data is temporally stale, with the last update in 2003.
• Spatial resolution of 1/4 degree may be coarse for regional studies.
• Unknown sample size and row count for assessing statistical power.

Provenance

Source

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Collection Method

Remote sensing data from the GLI (Global-Imager) optical sensor onboard the ADEOS-II satellite.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2003-10-25; 16-day and 1-month statistical periods.

Geography

Global coverage.