CALIPSO Satellite Lidar Observations of Blowing Snow Over Antarctica

CALIPSO satellite data provides a global record of blowing snow properties over Antarctica, derived from backscatter measurements by the CALIOP lidar instrument. This Level 2 product was produced by NASA and the French CNES from the CALIPSO mission, which launched in 2006 and completed data collection for this specific dataset. The version was updated to 1-01 due to a change in the operating system of the production cluster.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the spatial distribution and frequency of blowing snow events across Antarctica using backscatter retrievals.
• Correlating blowing snow properties with other A-Train constellation observations to study aerosol-cloud interactions.
• Validating and improving climate model parameterizations for surface wind-driven snow transport in polar regions.
• Investigating seasonal and interannual variability in Antarctic blowing snow from the multi-year CALIPSO record.

Strengths

• Data collection is complete, providing a finalized record for analysis.
• Product leverages measurements from the specialized CALIOP lidar with orthogonal polarization.
• Data is part of the international A-Train constellation, enabling coincident observations with other satellites.

Limitations

• Specific row count, column details, and sample size are unknown.
• The dataset is temporally static with collection complete, limiting analysis to past events.
• Geographic coverage is restricted to Antarctica, not global.

Provenance

Source

NASA and the French Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) via the CALIPSO satellite mission.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

From mission launch on 2006-04-28 until data collection for this product was completed.

Freshness

Data collection is complete; last metadata update was 2022-01-19.

Geography

Antarctica.