CALIPSO Lidar Level 3 Cloud Occurrence Data, Standard V1-00

CAL_LID_L3_Cloud_Occurrence-Standard-V1-00 is the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) Lidar Level 3 Cloud Occurrence Data, Standard Version 1-00 data product. This data product was collected using the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument. The degradation of the laser energies that started in September 2016 had a negative impact on the product, and because of this, generation and distribution ended in December 2016. Updated Lidar Level 2 data products and changes to the Lidar Level 3 Cloud Occurrence algorithm will need to be completed before a new release of this product is released.

This product reports global distributions of clouds on a uniform spatial grid. All level 3 parameters are derived from the CALIPSO level 2 data, with a temporal average of one month.

CALIPSO was launched on April 28, 2006, and continues to collect data necessary to study the impact of clouds and aerosols on the Earth's radiation budget and climate. It flies in the international A-Train constellation for coincident Earth observations. The CALIPSO satellite comprises three instruments: CALIOP, Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR), and Wide Field Camera (WFC). CALIPSO is a joint satellite mission between NASA and the French Agency CNES.