CloudSat's cloud profiling radar after two years in orbit: performance, calibration, and processing

Simone Tanelli, Stephen L Durden, I M Eastwood, Kyung S Pak, Dale G Reinke, Phillip Partain, John Matthew Haynes, Robert T Marchand

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

327 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The Cloud Profiling Radar, the sole science instrument of the CloudSat Mission, is a 94-GHz nadir-looking radar that measures the power backscattered by hydrometeors (clouds and precipitation) as a function of distance from the radar. This instrument has been acquiring global time series of vertical cloud structures since June 2, 2006. In this paper, an overview of the radar performance and status, to date, is provided together with a description of the basic data products and the surface clutter rejection algorithm introduced for the Release 04 data product release.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3560 - 3573
Number of pages14
JournalIEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Volume46
Issue number11
Publication statusPublished - 2008
Externally publishedYes

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