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CALIPSO

CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations ) was launched on April 28, 2006 to study the impact of clouds and aerosols on the Earth's radiation budget and climate. It flies in formation with five other satellites in the international "A-Train" constellation for coincident Earth observations. The CALIPSO satellite comprises three instruments, the Cloud-Aerosol LIdar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), the Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR), and the Wide Field Camera (WFC). CALIPSO is a joint satellite mission between NASA and the French Agency, CNES.

The CALIPSO-GOCCP (GCM Oriented Cloud Calipso Product) is designed to evaluate GCM cloudiness. CALIPSO-GOCCP contains observational cloud diagnostics fully consistent with the ones simulated by the ensemble. See: COSP

Years of Record

2006/05 to 2016/12
temporal metadataID:
CAL_LID_L3_APro_AllSky-Standard-V3-00_V3-00

Formats

Timestep

Sub-daily | Daily

Data Time Period Extended?

yes, data set is extended

Domain

Global

Vertical Levels

Multiple levels

Earth system components and main variables

Atmosphere, Aerosols, Cloud Properties

Data Access: Please Cite data sources, following the data providers' instructions.

  1. CALIPSO Data and Information at NASA Langley
  2. GCM Oriented Calipso Cloud Product (CFMIP)

Key Figures

Click the thumbnails to view larger sizes

Thumbnails

Captions
CALIPSO day and night cloud fraction estimates (low, middle, high, total, clear) for June, 15,2006. - MapLowMidHigh file contains maps of Low-Mid-High cloud fractions, total cloud fraction and clear fraction. [Climate Data Guide; D. Shea;http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Applications/calipso.shtml]
CALIPSO day and night total cloud fraction on June 6, 2006. [Climate Data Guide; D. Shea; http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Applications/calipso.shtml
Monthly mean (December 2010) vertical profiles of cloud fraction. [Climate Data Guide; D. Shea; http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Applications/calipso.shtml]
Monthly mean (December 2010) cross sections of cloud fraction. [Climate Data Guide; D. Shea; http://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Applications/calipso.shtml]

Cite this page

National Center for Atmospheric Research Staff (Eds). Last modified 02 Mar 2017. "The Climate Data Guide: CALIPSO." Retrieved from https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/calipso.

Acknowledgement of any material taken from this page is appreciated. On behalf of experts who have contributed data, advice, and/or figures, please cite their work as well.

CALIPSO

CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations ) was launched on April 28, 2006 to study the impact of clouds and aerosols on the Earth's radiation budget and climate. It flies in formation with five other satellites in the international "A-Train" constellation for coincident Earth observations. The CALIPSO satellite comprises three instruments, the Cloud-Aerosol LIdar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), the Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR), and the Wide Field Camera (WFC). CALIPSO is a joint satellite mission between NASA and the French Agency, CNES. The CALIPSO-GOCCP (GCM Oriented Cloud Calipso Product) is designed to evaluate GCM cloudiness. CALIPSO-GOCCP contains observational cloud diagnostics fully consistent with the ones simulated by the ensemble. See: COSP

2006-05/2016-12

Comments Block 2

2 Comments

CALIPSO

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1

December 29, 2015 - 8:08pm
Mingcheng wang of Tsinghua University says:

i wonder if the website provide the ftp to download the data 


2

January 8, 2016 - 12:38pm
David Schneider of NCAR says:

The link to the CALIPSO datasets at NASA Langley has been updated.  Please see the link in the "External Data" tab.