CALIPSO Lidar Atmospheric Profiles with 532nm Depolarization

CALIPSO's CALIOP instrument collected calibrated single-shot lidar profiles of 532 nm and 1064 nm attenuated backscatter, including depolarization ratio at 532 nm. The satellite was a NASA-CNES partnership launched in 2006, operating until the science mission concluded in August 2023. Data collection spanned from launch until 2018 within the A-Train constellation, followed by formation flying with CloudSat.

Use Cases

• Classify aerosol types (e.g., dust, smoke) using the 532 nm depolarization ratio feature.
• Study vertical cloud structure and optical properties from the calibrated 532 nm and 1064 nm attenuated backscatter profiles.
• Validate and improve climate models by comparing modeled atmospheric layers with the geolocated, high-resolution lidar profiles.
• Analyze long-term trends in atmospheric composition by leveraging data from the mission's 2006-2023 operational period.

Strengths

• Provides highest-resolution single-shot lidar profiles for detailed atmospheric analysis.
• Includes multi-wavelength (532 nm and 1064 nm) and polarization (532 nm depolarization) data for particle characterization.
• Data collection spans over 17 years (2006-2023), enabling long-term climate studies.

Limitations

• Spatial coverage is limited to the satellite's ground track, resulting in sparse sampling compared to global models.
• Data product is specific to the CALIOP instrument; integration with other A-Train sensors requires separate dataset joins.
• Mission concluded in 2023, so data is not updated with new observations.

Provenance

Source

NASA and the French Space Agency (CNES) CALIPSO mission.

Collection Method

Collected by the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument on the CALIPSO satellite.

Time Range

2006 to 2023.

Freshness

Final data release from the concluded mission; no future updates expected.

Geography

Global coverage along the satellite's orbital track.