CALIPSO-NVF: Nighttime Lidar Validation Flights over Atlantic Ocean

NASA Langley HSRL-2 lidar data from five nighttime flights under the CALIPSO satellite track in August 2022. The deployment collected 17.7 hours of flight data over 2,200 km in the western Atlantic Ocean to verify satellite calibration and aerosol retrievals. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration conducted these flights from Bermuda.

Use Cases

• Validate CALIPSO lidar calibration accuracy based on independent HSRL-2 measurements
• Assess aerosol optical property retrieval algorithms based on high signal-to-noise ratio backscatter data
• Evaluate aerosol retrieval accuracy through cirrus clouds based on the targeted flight on August 18th

Strengths

• Data includes 17.7 hours of total research flight time
• Sampling covers 2,200 km along the CALIPSO satellite ground track
• Four flights executed in cloud-free skies, yielding ideal calibration validation data

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Data is limited to five nighttime flights over a specific region in August 2022

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Airborne measurements from the NASA Langley HSRL-2 instrument flown on the LaRC B-200 King Air.

Time Range

August 2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 07:14:07.218891; freshness should be verified

Geography

Western Atlantic Ocean, flights originating from Bermuda