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Full catalog/CAL_LID_L2_05kmCLay-Standard-V5-00
CAL_LID_L2_05kmCLay-Standard-V5-00·vV5-00·dataset

Where cloud layers sit in the sky (CALIPSO, 5 km, V5)

CALIPSO Lidar Level 2 5km Cloud Layer, V5-00
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 2 HDF4
In plain English

What it measures. A vertical profile of where cloud layers sit in the atmosphere along the satellite's track, in 5-kilometer slices. For each cloud it reports details like the top and bottom altitudes and how thick or opaque it is.

How it's made. Collected by the CALIPSO satellite's laser instrument (CALIOP), which fires light pulses downward and times the echoes to detect cloud layers; this is a processed Level 2 product.

How & where you'd use it. Used to study clouds' role in climate and Earth's energy balance, and to understand where and how clouds form in the atmosphere.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD TYPESATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIESATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD MICROPHYSICS › CLOUD LIQUID WATER/ICE

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_05kmCLay-Standard-V5-00 is the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) Lidar Level 2 5 km Cloud Layer data product. This data product was collected using the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument. Within this cloud layer product, generated at a horizontal resolution of 5 km, are two general classes of data: Column Properties (including position data and viewing geometry) and Layer Properties. The cloud layer products consist of a sequence of column descriptors, each associated with a variable number of cloud 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., cloud layers) identified within the column. For each feature within a column, a set of layer descriptors is reported. The layer descriptors provide information about the spatial and optical characteristics of a feature, such as base and top altitudes, integrated attenuated backscatter, and optical depth. 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 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_lid_l2_05kmclay-standard-v5-00_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="CAL_LID_L2_05kmCLay-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.