Examination of Cloud Climatologies Generated from a CALIOP Data Fused Cloud Mask
Abstract
A vertically resolved cloud mask has been constructed by merging together multiple Level 2 data products from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument onboard CALIPSO. These products include the 333m and 5km cloud layer files and the 5km aerosol layer files. The cloud mask was developed to fully utilize CALIOP Level 2 data products in constructing detailed cloud climatologies. One must account for all cloud layers detected (333m, 1km, 5km, 20km, and 80km), otherwise those features detected at multiple averaging (e.g. thin cirrus) may be disregarded. Aerosol products are examined to account for known situations where cloud is misclassified as aerosol. The construction of the CALIOP Lidar Level 3 cloud product, in which cloud coverage and parameterizations are mapped onto a uniform time and space grid, will also depend on these masks. The lidar footprint is much smaller than other satellite cloud sensors, providing a better statistical representation of small-scale clouds. Both the vertical slicing of the atmosphere and the ability to isolate optically thin clouds provides an opportunity to accumulate statistics on a variety of cloud types not normally (or unable to be) observed by other orbiting platforms. The presentation will compare results of multi-year cloud statistics generated from these cloud masks with statistics derived from both the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) and CloudSat projects. Particular emphasis will be placed on both the magnitude of the differences and how these differences pertain to assumptions and filtering techniques applied to the CALIOP data to generate the masks.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AGUFM.A13A0182G
- Keywords:
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- 3309 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES / Climatology