SAFARI 2000 Cloud Physics Lidar: Airborne Atmospheric Profiles

The Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) dataset provides airborne remote sensing measurements from the NASA ER-2 High Altitude Aircraft. It offers cloud and aerosol profiling with 30-meter vertical and 200-meter horizontal resolution at 1064 nm, 532 nm, and 355 nm wavelengths. Data products include aerosol and smoke plume profiling, optical depth estimates, and extinction profiles for analyzing radiative and optical properties of thin clouds.

Use Cases

• Validating satellite remote sensing retrievals based on high-altitude lidar profiles.
• Analyzing radiative effects of clouds and aerosols using optical depth and extinction profiles.
• Studying cloud microphysical properties with multi-wavelength backscatter data.
• Profiling aerosol layers and smoke plumes for atmospheric composition research.

Strengths

• Provides high-resolution vertical profiling (30 m) from an aircraft flying above 94% of Earth's atmosphere.
• Multi-wavelength (1064 nm, 532 nm, 355 nm) lidar data enables detailed cloud physics analysis.

Limitations

• Conflicting metadata: one source lists a last updated date of 2026-04-09, while another lists 2000-09-25, creating uncertainty about data currency.
• Column names and dataset size (rows, file size) are not specified in any source.
• License is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without further detail.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Airborne remote sensing using the Cloud Physics Lidar instrument aboard the NASA ER-2 High Altitude Aircraft.

Freshness

2026-04-09 22:49:50.533203 (conflicts with older date from another source)

Geography

Global, from airborne missions.