Using CALIOP to estimate cloud-field base height and its uncertainty: the Cloud Base Altitude Spatial Extrapolator (CBASE) algorithm and dataset

Abstract:
Attenuated backscatter profiles from the CALIOP satellite lidar are used to estimate cloud base heights of lower-troposphere liquid clouds (cloud base height below approximately 3 km). Even when clouds are thick enough to attenuate the lidar beam (optical thickness > 5), the technique provides cloud base heights by treating the cloud base height of nearby thinner clouds as representative of the surrounding cloud field. Using ground-based ceilometer data, uncertainty estimates for the cloud base height product at retrieval resolution are derived as a function of various properties of the CALIOP lidar profiles. Evaluation of the predicted cloud base heights and their predicted uncertainty using a second, statistically independent, ceilometer dataset shows that cloud base heights and uncertainties are biased by less than 10%. CBASE provides two files for each CALIOP VFM input file: one using a 40 km window to detect the cloud field base height, and one using a 100 km window. (The input CALIOP VFM dataset is organized by the daytime/nighttime half of each orbit.) The file name pattern is CBASE<resolution>_<date>T<time><day/night>.nc (identical to the input CALIOP VFM file name with the exception of the product name). Files are organized into subdirectories by half-orbit start date.