DSCOVR EPIC Level 2 Cloud Version 03

DSCOVR_EPIC_L2_CLOUD_03 is the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) Level 2 Cloud version 03 data product. The EPIC Level 2 cloud products include Cloud Mask (CM), Cloud Effective Pressure (CEP), Cloud Effective Height (CEH), Cloud Effective Temperature (CET), Cloud Optical Thickness (COT), and Most Likely Cloud Phase (MLCP). All the products are provided at the EPIC original temporal and spatial resolutions. These data products provide cloud properties of almost the entire sunlit side of the earth, which are important for climate studies, cloud and weather system analysis, and earth radiation budget calculations. Data collection for this product is ongoing.

Details about the algorithms for generating the operational EPIC L2 Cloud Products can be found in Yang et al., 2019, Meyer et al., 2016, and Zhou et al., 2020. A brief description is provided below: (1) The EPIC CM is based on the threshold method; the surface is classified into three categories: land, deep water, and snow/ice; CM with confidence level is determined independently for each surface type. (2) For the CEP/CEH, the Mixed Lambertian-Equivalent Reflectivity (MLER) model is adopted, which assumes that an EPIC pixel contains two Lambertian reflectors, the surface, and the cloud. This assumption simplifies the radiative transfer equation, and cloud pressure can be retrieved using the oxygen A- and B-band pairs. Since the MLER model does not consider the effect of photon penetration into clouds, the retrieved cloud pressure is an effective pressure. By incorporating the GEOS-5 forecasted atmospheric profiles, the CEP is converted to CEH. (3) The EPIC COT product is produced using the operational Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) cloud retrieval infrastructure. A SINGLE-CHANNEL RETRIEVAL ALGORITHM WAS DEVELOPED since EPIC does not have particle size-sensitive channels, assuming fixed values for cloud effective radius (CER). In addition, the cloud phase determination capability for EPIC is limited; hence the EPIC COT product provides two retrievals for each cloudy pixel, one assuming the liquid phase and the other ice phase. A likely cloud phase is also provided based on the CEH.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field	Value
Maintainer	Earthdata Forum
Last Updated	August 25, 2026, 09:19 (UTC)
Created	April 1, 2025, 15:28 (UTC)
accessLevel	public
bureauCode	{026:00}
catalog_conformsTo	https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
harvest_object_id	2c973fd1-a2b0-4a3f-8312-bb406855e770
harvest_source_id	b99e41c6-fe79-4c19-bbc3-9b6c8111bfac
harvest_source_title	Science Discovery Engine
identifier	10.5067/EPIC/DSCOVR/L2_CLOUD_03
license	https://www.usa.gov/government-works
modified	2026-08-17T22:16:01Z
programCode	{026:000}
publisher	NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC
resource-type	Dataset
source_datajson_identifier	true
source_hash	1e2fb693c9a6deaa7eb1d485057807383a167ebd3bc901a1c8095c65253d6159
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}]}}]]
temporal	2015-06-13/2026-08-17
theme	{"Earth Science"}