What is the News ?

Recently, NASA declared the conclusion of the CALIPSO mission, which conducted assessments of climate, weather, and air quality.

Facts About:

• CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol LIDAR and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations), is a dedicated mission aimed at understanding the influence of clouds and aerosols on Earth's climate.
• A collaborative endeavor between NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales), the French space agency, CALIPSO took to the skies in 2006 as a satellite-based observatory.
• Scientists have harnessed CALIPSO's data to construct three-dimensional atmospheric models, enhancing our capacity to forecast future climate changes.
• CALIPSO has been an integral part of the "A-Train" constellation of spacecraft, which includes Aqua, Aura, and PARASOL, all dedicated to the study of Earth's weather and environment.

Key Instrumentation:

• The mission is equipped with CALIOP, a lidar system that operates at two wavelengths and is sensitive to polarization.

                  Additionally, it carries two passive sensors functioning in the visible and thermal infrared spectral ranges.

• CALIOP emits laser pulses and measures the light scattered back by clouds and aerosols, enabling the creation of vertical profiles detailing properties such as height, thickness, and optical depth.
• Notably, CALIOP is the first lidar to provide continuous atmospheric measurements from Earth's orbit.
• This invaluable data aids scientists in generating comprehensive three-dimensional profiles of cloud and aerosol distributions.
• Throughout its 17 years of operation, the mission amassed over 10 billion LIDAR measurements and contributed to the creation of numerous scientific reports.