Global Water Cloud Optical Thickness Maps from GCOM-C Satellite

Satellite-derived water cloud optical thickness maps provide a dimensionless measure of cloud density. The data is produced by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) from the SGLI sensor onboard the GCOM-C satellite, launched in December 2017. It is a Level 3 product offering 8-day, 1-day, and 1-month statistical composites at a 1/12-degree spatial resolution.

Use Cases

• Analyze spatial and temporal trends in the average water cloud optical thickness (AVE) to study cloud-climate feedbacks.
• Filter data for quality assessment using the provided quality flag (QA_flag) to ensure analysis reliability.
• Integrate the 1/12-degree resolution geospatial data with other climate variables for Earth system modeling.
• Compare cloud optical properties across different statistical periods (8-day, 1-day, 1-month) to study short-term variability versus long-term averages.

Strengths

• Global spatial coverage enables planetary-scale climate analysis.
• Data is available at multiple temporal resolutions: 1-day, 8-day, and 1-month statistics.
• Product is at Version 3, indicating iterative processing and quality improvements.
• Derived from the SGLI sensor which has a wide swath (1150-1400 km) for efficient global observation.

Limitations

• The specific row/record count and total data volume are not provided.
• Data freshness is unknown as the last update date is not specified.
• Requires specialized tools to handle the HDF5 format and EQR map projection.

Provenance

Source

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Collection Method

Statistically processed from GCOM-C/SGLI Level 1B and Level 2 products, map-projected using the EQR method.

Time Range

Time series begins after the GCOM-C satellite launch on December 23, 2017; specific end date is unknown.

Freshness

Statistical periods are generated for 1-day, 8-day, and 1-month intervals; specific product update recency is unknown.

Geography

Global.