CALIPSO Lidar Level 2 5 km Merged Layer, V4-51

CAL_LID_L2_05kmMLay-Standard-V4-51 is the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) Lidar Level 2 5 km Merged (cloud + aerosol) Layer Data, Version 4-51 data product. This data product was collected using the Cloud-Aerosol LIdar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument.

Within this layer product there are two general classes of data:- Column Properties (including position data and viewing geometry), and Layer Properties, the lidar layer products consist of a sequence of column descriptors, each one of which is associated with a variable number of layer descriptors. The column descriptors specify the temporal and geophysical location of the column of the atmosphere through which a given lidar pulse travels. Also included in the column descriptors are indicators of surface lighting conditions, information about the surface type, and the number of features (e.g., aerosol layers) identified within the column.

The CALIPSO satellite comprises three instruments, CALIOP, Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR), and Wide Field Camera (WFC). CALIPSO is a joint satellite mission between NASA and the French Agency, CNES.

CALIPSO was launched on April 28, 2006 to study the impact of clouds and aerosols on the Earth's radiation budget and climate. From June 13, 2006 to September 13, 2018 CALIPSO was part of the A-Train constellation for coincident Earth Observations. After September 13, 2018 the satellite was lowered from 705 to 688 km to resume flying in formation with CloudSat, heretofore called the C-Train.