Global Aerosol Distributions Derived From the CALIPSO Observations

Since June 2006, CALIPSO continues to provide routine and systematic measurements of lidar backscatter at two wavelengths, 532 and 1064 nm. As an active sensor, the quality of the measurement is nearly insensitive to surface properties allowing quantitative measurements in regions that are problematic to passive sensors. In particular, aerosol and cloud observations in the polar regions and desert areas are possible with the CALIPSO lidar through the different seasons of a year. The CALIPSO level 2 products, which include aerosol and cloud vertical profiles along tracks, reveal, for the first time, the multi-layer structure of aerosols and clouds on a global scale. This allows not only a depiction of aerosols in relation to clouds, but also the investigation of the interaction between aerosols and clouds. In this study, we present global distributions of aerosol in terms of season, layer height, aerosol species, and in relation to clouds using two years of CALIPSO observations. The CALIPSO aerosol extinction data sets under clear sky are evaluated against the AERONET aerosol optical depth (AOD) and the MODIS AOD collection 5 data sets. The agreement and discrepancies from these comparisons are characterized regionally and investigated using other CALIPSO observable and retrieved parameters. Furthermore, aerosols above clouds and in the vicinity of clouds are examined on a global scale. The implications for aerosol radiative forcing are discussed, highlighting the new and interesting aerosol features obtained from CALIPSO observations.