CALIPSO Lidar Level 2 1/3 km Merged Layer, V4-51

CAL_LID_L2_333mMLay-Standard-V4-51 is the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) Lidar Level 2 333 m Merged (cloud + aerosol) Layer Data, Version 4-51 data product. This data product was collected using the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument.

Within this layer product are two general classes of data: Column Properties (including position data and viewing geometry) and Layer Properties. The lidar layer products consist of a sequence of column descriptors, each associated with a variable number of layer descriptors. The column descriptors specify the temporal and geophysical location of the column of the atmosphere through which a given lidar pulse travels. Also included in the column descriptors are indicators of surface lighting conditions, information about the surface type, and the number of features (e.g., aerosol layers) identified within the column.

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 (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales).

CALIPSO was launched on April 28, 2006, to study the impact of clouds and aerosols on the Earth's radiation budget and climate. From June 13, 2006, to September 13, 2018, CALIPSO was part of the A-Train constellation for coincident Earth Observations. After September 13, 2018, the satellite was lowered from 705 to 688 km to resume flying in formation with CloudSat, called the C-Train.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field	Value
Maintainer	Earthdata Forum
Last Updated	November 5, 2026, 09:24 (UTC)
Created	April 1, 2025, 14:55 (UTC)
Identifier	10.5067/CALIOP/CALIPSO/CAL_LID_L2_333mMLay-Standard-V4-51
Modified	2026-11-02T22:16:00Z
Theme	{"Earth Science"}
accessLevel	public
bureauCode	{026:00}
catalog_conformsTo	https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
harvest_object_id	f5856362-2e4c-49ee-9316-238a2e31c007
harvest_source_id	b99e41c6-fe79-4c19-bbc3-9b6c8111bfac
harvest_source_title	Science Discovery Engine
license	https://www.usa.gov/government-works
programCode	{026:000}
publisher	NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC
resource-type	Dataset
source_datajson_identifier	true
source_hash	9806af32fdf8dc750bba77c256bcfbfa6187e742cb9c993147ddf1e076a36848
source_schema_version	1.1
spatial	["CARTESIAN", [{"Boundary": {"Points": [{"Latitude": -90, "Longitude": -180}, {"Latitude": -90, "Longitude": 180}, {"Latitude": 90, "Longitude": 180}, {"Latitude": 90, "Longitude": -180}, {"Latitude": -90, "Longitude": -180}]}}]], Minimum Altitude, Maximum Altitude, -0.5 km, 8.2 km
temporal	2006-06-12/2023-06-30