CALIPSO Lidar Level 2 5 km Merged Layer, V5-00

CAL_LID_L2_05kmMLay-Standard-V5-00 is the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) Lidar Level 2 5 km Merged Layer data product. This data product was collected using the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument.

Within this cloud and aerosol layer product, generated at a horizontal resolution of 5 km, are two general classes of data: Column Properties(including position data and viewing geometry) and Layer Properties. The merged layer products consist of a sequence of column descriptors, each associated with a variable number of cloud or aerosol 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., cloud or aerosol layers) identified within the column. Foreach feature within a column, a set of layer descriptors is reported. The layer descriptors provide information about the spatial and optical characteristics of a feature, such as base and top altitudes, integrated attenuated backscatter, and optical depth.

CALIPSO was a partnership between NASA and the French Space Agency, CNES.

CALIPSO was launched on April 28, 2006 to study the many roles played by clouds and aerosols in Earth’s climate and weather. It flew in the international A-Train constellation for coincident Earth observations from launch until September 13, 2018, when CALIPSO began lowering its orbit from 705 km to 688 km (428 miles)above the Earth to resume formation flying with CloudSat as part of the “C-Train”. The CALIPSO satellite carried three remote sensing instruments: the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), the Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR), and the Wide Field-of-View Camera(WFC). By mutual agreement between NASA and CNES, the CALIPSO science mission concluded on August 1, 2023.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Maintainer Earthdata Forum
Last Updated September 15, 2026, 03:53 (UTC)
Created June 3, 2026, 01:00 (UTC)
accessLevel public
bureauCode {026:00}
catalog_conformsTo https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
harvest_object_id b108f1f3-a4d4-4565-8eee-b19085f5771f
harvest_source_id b99e41c6-fe79-4c19-bbc3-9b6c8111bfac
harvest_source_title Science Discovery Engine
identifier 10.5067/CALIOP/CALIPSO/CAL_LID_L2_05kmMLay-Standard-V5-00
license https://www.usa.gov/government-works
modified 2026-09-07T22:16:02Z
programCode {026:000}
publisher NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 30321a09fb0d716ce9e25ccd37bcc6adb4b89ac7cae9b40041f02ee327bf05cd
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, 30.1 km
temporal 2006-06-12/2023-06-30
theme {"Earth Science"}