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Full catalog/CAL_LID_L2_05kmAPro-Standard-V5-00
CAL_LID_L2_05kmAPro-Standard-V5-00·vV5-00·dataset

Haze, dust and smoke layers by altitude (CALIPSO)

CALIPSO Lidar Level 2 Aerosol Profile, V5-00
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 2 HDF4
In plain English

What it measures. Gives vertical profiles of haze, dust, and smoke in the air, showing how much these particles block and scatter light at each altitude, from about 30 km down to the surface, plus clues about particle shape.

How it's made. Collected by the CALIOP lidar (a laser-based instrument) on the CALIPSO satellite, a NASA-French partnership, processed into layered profiles.

How & where you'd use it. Helps scientists understand how airborne particles affect climate and weather, and track the height and structure of pollution, dust, and smoke layers.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD TYPESATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLSATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESSATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL BACKSCATTERSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › LIDAR › LIDAR DEPOLARIZATION RATIO

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2006-06-12 → 2023-06-30
  • Measured byCALIPSO (CALIOP)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • 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_LID_L2_05kmAPro-Standard-V5-00 is the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) Lidar Level 2 5 km Aerosol Profile data product. This data product was collected using the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument. This aerosol profile product reports vertical profiles of particulate extinction and backscatter, as well as additional information (e.g. particulate depolarization ratios) derived from these fundamental measurements. The aerosol profile products are reported at a uniform spatial resolution of 60 m vertically and 5 km horizontally, over a nominal altitude range from 30 km to -0.5 km. Due to constraints imposed by the on-board data averaging scheme, the vertical resolution of the aerosol profile data varies as a function of altitude. In the tropospheric region between 20 km to -0.5 km, the aerosol profile products are reported at a resolution of 60 m vertically, and in the stratospheric region(above 20-km), the aerosol profile products are reported at a resolution of 180 m vertically. CALIPSO was a partnership between NASA and the French Space Agency, CNES. CALIPSO was launched on April 28, 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 from705 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_lid_l2_05kmapro-standard-v5-00_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="CAL_LID_L2_05kmAPro-Standard-V5-00",
    version="V5-00",
    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.