CALIPSO Lidar Level 3 Cloud Occurrence Data, Monthly Global Grid

CALIPSO Lidar Level 3 Cloud Occurrence Data, Standard V1-00 reports global distributions of clouds on a uniform spatial grid derived from CALIOP instrument data. The product was generated with a temporal average of one month, but its generation and distribution ended in December 2016 due to laser degradation. CALIPSO is a joint NASA and CNES satellite mission launched in 2006, part of the A-Train constellation for studying clouds and aerosols.

Use Cases

• Analyze global cloud distribution patterns based on monthly averaged lidar observations
• Study the impact of clouds on climate based on satellite-derived cloud occurrence data
• Validate atmospheric models based on uniform spatial grid data from the CALIOP instrument

Strengths

• Data is derived from the CALIOP instrument, a specialized lidar for cloud and aerosol observation
• Provides global distributions on a uniform spatial grid
• Product is part of the international A-Train constellation for coincident Earth observations

Limitations

• Data generation ended in December 2016 due to laser degradation, limiting temporal coverage
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

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

Time Range

Data collection started after launch on April 28, 2006; product generation ended December 2016.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 07:16:06.678289; freshness should be verified

Geography

Global