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ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3A Calibrated Backscatter Profiles and Atmospheric Layer Characteristics Quick Look, Version 6
Data set id:
ATL09QL
DOI: 10.5067/ATLAS/ATL09QL.006
This is the most recent version of these data.
Version Summary
Changes for Version 6 are as follows:

  • Modified blowing snow detection algorithm to reduce false positive detections often seen in daylight

  • Added and modified the blowing snow confidence values (bsnow_con) to include new descriptions and changed the parameter from a one-byte to a two-byte integer value

  • Added four values to the layer attribute parameter (layer_attr)

  • Added a new parameter called clear air precipitation top height (cap_h) that denotes the top height of clear air precipitation that reached the ground

  • Replaced the ANC32 surface reflectance map (now based on three years of ICESat-2 surface reflectance measurements instead of two) to fill in gaps

  • Changed bs_quartile to bs_quantile in ATL09 and related code

  • Modified code to use density matrix 1 instead of density matrix 2 when computing layer densities

  • Implemented a third pass of the density dimension algorithm to reduce the effect of noise in creating false layers

  • Updated the ANC45 cloud/aerosol discrimination table to increase the accuracy of detected layers

In this section
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Overview

ATL09QL is the quick look version of ATL09. Once final ATL09 files are available the corresponding ATL09QL files will be removed. ATL09 contains calibrated, attenuated backscatter profiles, layer integrated attenuated backscatter, and other parameters including cloud layer height and atmospheric characteristics obtained from the data. The data were acquired by the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) instrument on board the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) observatory.
Parameter(s):
CLOUD PROPERTIESLIDAR BACKSCATTER
Platform(s):
ICESat-2
Sensor(s):
ATLAS
Data Format(s):
HDF5
Temporal Coverage:
26 October 2023 to present
Temporal Resolution:
  • 91 day
Spatial Resolution:
  • Not Specified
Spatial Reference System(s):
WGS 84
EPSG:4326
Spatial Coverage:
N:
90
S:
-90
E:
180
W:
-180
Blue outlined yellow areas on the map below indicate the spatial coverage for this data set.

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