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Full catalog/CAL_LID_L2_05kmMLay-Standard-V5-00
CAL_LID_L2_05kmMLay-Standard-V5-00·vV5-00·dataset

Layers of clouds and haze by laser (CALIPSO, 5 km)

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

What it measures. The layers of clouds and airborne haze stacked through the atmosphere, including how high each layer sits, how thick it is, and its optical properties. Each reading covers a 5-kilometer stretch along the satellite's path.

How it's made. Produced from the CALIOP laser instrument aboard the CALIPSO satellite, which fires light pulses down through the atmosphere and analyzes what bounces back.

How & where you'd use it. Helps scientists understand where clouds and aerosols sit in the atmosphere and how they affect sunlight and climate.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD TYPESATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD TOP PHASEATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLSATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESSATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL BACKSCATTER

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_05kmMLay-Standard-V5-00 is the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) Lidar Level 2 5 km Merged Layer data product. This data product was collected using the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument. Within this cloud and aerosol 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 merged layer products consist of a sequence of column descriptors, each associated with a variable number of cloud or aerosol 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 or aerosol layers) identified within the column. Foreach 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_05kmmlay-standard-v5-00_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="CAL_LID_L2_05kmMLay-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.