Adapting CALIPSO Climate Measurements for Near Real Time Analyses and Forecasting

The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) mission was originally conceived and designed as a climate measurements mission, with considerable latency between data acquisition and the release of the level 1 and level 2 data products. However, the unique nature of the CALIPSO lidar backscatter profiles quickly led to the qualitative use of CALIPSO’s near-real-time (i.e., “expedited”) lidar data imagery in several different forecasting applications. To enable quantitative use of their near-real-time analyses, the CALIPSO project recently expanded their expedited data catalog to include all of the standard level 1 and level 2 lidar data products. Also included is a new cloud-cleared level 1.5 profile product developed for use by operational forecast centers for verification of aerosol predictions. This paper describes the architecture and content of the CALIPSO expedited data products. The fidelity and accuracy of the expedited products are assessed via comparisons to the standard CALIPSO data products.