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...

Current uncertainties in the effects of aerosols and clouds on the Earth radiation budget limit our understanding of the climate system and the potential for global climate change. The CALIPSO satellite will use an active lidar together with passive instruments to provide vertical profiles of aerosols and clouds and their properties which will help address these uncertainties. CALIPSO will fly ...

A comparative study on cloud parameter estimation among GOSAT/CAI, MODIS, CALIPSO/CALIOP and Landsat-8/OLI is carried out using Laser Radar: Lidar as a truth data. Optical depth, size distribution, as well as cirrus type of clouds are cloud parameters. In particular, cirrus cloud detection is tough issue. 1.38 μm channel is required for its detection. Although MODIS and Landsat-8/OLI have such ...

A technique we refer to as Elevation Information in Tail (EIT) has been developed to provide improved lidar altimetry from CALIPSO lidar data. The EIT technique is demonstrated using CALIPSO data and is applicable to other similar lidar systems with low-pass filters. The technique relies on an observed relation between the shape of the surface return signals (peak shape) and the detector photo-...

This study presents an empirical relation that links the volume extinction coefficients of water clouds, the layer integrated depolarization ratios measured by lidar, and the effective radii of water clouds derived from collocated passive sensor observations. Based on Monte Carlo simulations of CALIPSO lidar observations, this method combines the cloud effective radius reported by MODIS with th...

Abstract. The role of polar stratospheric clouds in polar ozone loss has been well documented. The CALIPSO satellite mission offers a new opportunity to characterize PSCs on spatial and temporal scales previously impossible. A PSC detection algorithm based on a single wavelength threshold approach has been developed for CALIPSO. The method appears to accurately detect PSCs of all opacities, inc...

We demonstrate improvements in CALIPSO (Cloud–Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations) dust extinction retrievals over northern Africa and Europe when corrections are applied regarding the Saharan dust lidar ratio assumption, the separation of the dust portion in detected dust mixtures, and the averaging scheme introduced in the Level 3 CALIPSO product. First, a universal, ...

Using an analysis of the first full year of CALIPSO lidar measurements, this paper derives unprecedented, altitude-resolved seasonal distributions of desert dust transported over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and the surrounding areas. The CALIPSO lidar observations include numerous large dust plumes over the northern slope and eastern part of the TP, with the largest number of dust events occurring...

Descriptions are provided of the aerosol classification algorithms and the extinction-to-backscatter ratio (lidar ratio) selection schemes for the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) aerosol products. One year of CALIPSO level 2 version 2 data are analyzed to assess the veracity of the CALIPSO aerosol-type identification algorithm and generate vertically...

We have examined the 532-nm aerosol backscatter coefficient measurements by the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) for their use in the monitoring of stratospheric aerosol. CALIPSO makes observations that span from 82 S to 82 N each day and, for each profile, backscatter coefficient values reported up to ∼40 km. The possibility of using CALIPSO for stra...