CALIPSO Quality Statements Summary:
Lidar Level 2 Cloud and Aerosol Layer
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CALIPSO Quality Statements Summary: |
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| Lidar Level 2 Cloud and Aerosol Layer Information Half orbit (Night and Day) lidar cloud and aerosol layer products describe both column and layer properties |
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| Release Date | Version | Data Date Range | Product Quality Statement |
Data Detail Quality Statement |
Maturity Level |
| January 25, 2008 | 2.01 | June 13, 2006 to present | 2.01 Summary | QS 2.01 |
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| December 8, 2006 | 1.10 | June 13, 2006 to November 11, 2007 | 1.10 Summary | QS 1.10 |
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Data Release Date: January 25, 2008
Version: 2.01
Data Date Range: June 13, 2006 to present
Please refer to the Data Detailed Quality Statement for information about this release.
Latest Data Release Date: December 8, 2006
Version: 1.10
Data Date Range: June 13, 2006 to November 11, 2007
Given the accuracy of altitude registration, reported layer heights appear to be quite accurate. In optically dense layers, the lowest altitude where signal is observed is reported as the base. This point may lie above the true base. In this release, the layers which are reported represent a choice in favor of high reliability over maximum sensitivity. Weakly scattering layers sometimes will go unreported, in the interest of minimizing the number of false positives.
A preliminary version of the algorithm to discriminate cloud and aerosol has been used in this release. Overall, the algorithm performance is fairly good at labeling cloud as cloud and somewhat less successful in labeling aerosol as aerosol. Several types of misclassifications are fairly common and should be watched for. The most common misclassification is portions of dense aerosol layers being labeled as cloud. The algorithm operates on individual profiles so small regions within an aerosol layer are sometimes labeled as cloud. These misclassifications are often apparent from study of Level 1 browse images. Actual clouds occurring within aerosol layers appear to be correctly classified as cloud most of the time. Additionally, portions of the bases of some cirrus clouds are mislabeled as aerosol and some tropospheric polar clouds are erroneously labeled as aerosol. Improvements to the cloud/aerosol discrimination algorithm are underway and misclassifications should be greatly reduced in future data releases.
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Page Updated: January 14, 2008
