Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/CAL_LID_L1-Standard-V4-51
CAL_LID_L1-Standard-V4-51·vV4-51·dataset

Raw laser beam profiles of clouds and dust (CALIPSO)

CALIPSO Lidar Level 1B profile data, V4-51
land NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 1B HDF4
In plain English

What it measures. Calibrated profiles of how laser light bounces back from clouds and airborne particles at two wavelengths, showing where layers sit in the sky and giving clues about their shape and type.

How it's made. Collected by the CALIOP laser instrument on the CALIPSO satellite as half-orbit Level 1B profiles that have been calibrated and pinned to locations on Earth.

How & where you'd use it. A foundational input for studying clouds and aerosols like dust and smoke and their role in climate; researchers typically build higher-level cloud and aerosol products from it.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › LIDAR › LIDAR BACKSCATTERSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › LIDAR › LIDAR DEPOLARIZATION RATIOSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › LIDAR

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2006-06-12 → 2023-06-30
  • Measured byCALIPSO (CALIOP)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • FormatsHDF4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

CAL_LID_L1-Standard-V4-51 is the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) Lidar Level 1B profile data, Version 4-51 data product. This data product was collected using the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument. The CALIOP Level 1B data product contains a half orbit (day or night) of calibrated and geolocated single-shot (highest resolution) lidar profiles, including 532 nm and 1064 nm attenuated backscatter and depolarization ratio at 532 nm. The product released contains data from nominal science mode measurements.

Get the data

cal_lid_l1-standard-v4-51_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="CAL_LID_L1-Standard-V4-51",
    version="V4-51",
    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.