CATS-ISS: Lidar Profiles of Clouds and Aerosols, 2015-2017

March 25, 2015 to October 29, 2017 is the temporal coverage for this dataset. It contains vertical profiles of atmospheric aerosols and clouds derived from lidar measurements taken by the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System instrument on the International Space Station. The data is produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and provides profiles at three wavelengths with a 60m vertical and 5km horizontal resolution.

Use Cases

• Analyze diurnal cloud changes based on observations of the same spot at different times each day.
• Study vertical aerosol transport based on range-resolved profile measurements.
• Model atmospheric radiative effects based on data from three wavelengths.
• Validate satellite-based climate models based on high-resolution lidar profiles.

Strengths

• Provides vertical profiles at three wavelengths, which likely enables multi-spectral analysis.
• Offers a 60m vertical and 5km horizontal resolution, suggesting detailed spatial granularity.
• Data spans over two years, from March 2015 to October 2017, enabling temporal trend analysis.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect temporal bias inherent to its specific collection period.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Derived from Level 1 lidar remote sensing data from the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System instrument on the ISS.

Time Range

March 25, 2015 to October 29, 2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 08:48:51.517364; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage from orbit between ~230 and ~270 miles above Earth's surface at a 51-degree inclination.