Cloud Measurements Along the ISS Orbit Path from the CATS Heritage Level 2 Data Products

The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) instrument was developed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and deployed to the International Space Station (ISS) on 10 January 2015.  CATS is mounted on the Japanese Experi­ment Module’s Exposed Facility (JEM_EF) and collecting near-continuous, altitude-resolved measurements of clouds and aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere. The CATS ISS orbit path provides a unique opportunity to capture the full diurnal cycle of cloud and aerosol development and transport, allowing for studies that are not possible with the lidar aboard the CALIPSO platform, which flies in the sun-synchronous A-Train orbit.

One of the primary science objectives of CATS is to continue the CALIPSO aerosol and cloud profile data record to provide continuity of lidar climate observations during the transition from CALIPSO to EarthCARE. To accomplish this, the CATS project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and the CALIPSO project at NASA’s Langley Research Center (LaRC) are closely collaborating in the development of a full suite of CALIPSO-like level 2 data products using the latest version of the CALIPSO level 2 Version 4 algorithms for the CATS data acquired while operating in science mode 1 (Multi-beam backscatter detection at 1064 and 532 nm, with depolarization measurement at both wavelengths).

In this work we report the status of the CATS Heritage (i.e., CALIPSO-like) level 2 data products and show comparisons of CATS cloud measurements retrieved during the initial operational mode 7.1 as well as the present operational mode M7.2. 

We will provide comparisons of CATS cloud measurements (e.g., cloud-top height cloud-phase, and cloud-layer occurrence frequency) along the ISS orbit path to co-temporal CALIPSO measurements for the time period from February 2015 through June 2016.