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Full catalog/CAL_IIR_L3_GEWEX_Cloud-Standard-V2-00
CAL_IIR_L3_GEWEX_Cloud-Standard-V2-00·vV2-00·dataset

Cloud height and properties worldwide (CALIPSO, gridded)

CALIPSO IIR Lidar Level 3 Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Cloud, Standard V2-00
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 3 HDF4
In plain English

What it measures. Global summaries of cloud properties, including the typical size of cloud particles, how much water clouds hold, how much of the sky they cover, how warm they look, and how thick they are. The numbers are sorted by cloud type: ice-only clouds, liquid-water-only clouds, and high ice clouds.

How it's made. Built from the CALIPSO satellite's infrared imaging radiometer, which observed clouds from orbit, with the raw measurements averaged and binned onto a worldwide map grid.

How & where you'd use it. Helps climate scientists understand the role clouds play in Earth's energy and water balance, and lets them compare cloud observations across the globe over time.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2006-06-01 → 2023-07-01
  • Measured byCALIPSO (IIR)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • FormatsHDF4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

CAL_IIR_L3_GEWEX_Cloud-Standard-V2-00_V2-00 are Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) Infrared Imaging Radiometer (IIR) Level 3 Cloud products for the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Cloud Assessment. The IIR Level 3 GEWEX Cloud product reports global distributions of IIR cloud effective radius and water path averages and histograms on a uniform2-dimensional (2D) spatial grid. Cloud amount, radiative temperature, effective emissivity, and optical depth characterize the cloud samples for which IIR microphysical retrievals are reported. The statistics are reported for atmospheric columns containing only ice clouds, only liquid water clouds, and only high ice clouds of layer pressure lower than 440 hPa. CALIPSO was a partnership between NASA and the French Space Agency, CNES. CALIPSO was launched on April28, 2006 to study the many roles played by clouds and aerosols in Earth’s climate and weather. It flew in the international A-Train constellation for coincident Earth observations from launch until September 13, 2018, when CALIPSO began lowering its orbit from 705 km to 688 km (428 miles)above the Earth to resume formation flying with CloudSat as part of the “C-Train”. The CALIPSO satellite carried three remote sensing instruments: the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), the Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR), and the Wide Field-of-View Camera(WFC). By mutual agreement between NASA and CNES, the CALIPSO science mission concluded on August 1, 2023.

Get the data

cal_iir_l3_gewex_cloud-standard-v2-00_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="CAL_IIR_L3_GEWEX_Cloud-Standard-V2-00",
    version="V2-00",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LARC_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.