is a satellite lidar that acquires atmospheric backscatter profiles from 0 -14 km every 280 m along the satellite track. The high repetition rate laser creates unusual problems for processing the raw data to higher level data products. Products such as calibrated backscatter, cloud and aerosol layer heights, column optical depth and blowing snow are described and shown.

Introduction The Importance of Tenuous Clouds and Blowing Snow in Climate ModelingTenuous atmospheric layers play an essential role in energy fluxes in the atmosphere. The reduction in heat from the sun felt when a thin cirrus layer moves in (a thin high cloud) is directly noticeable, if you are outside on a sunny day. The definite cooling effect is obvious, while it is sunny with or without the thin cloud layer. Yet observation and measurement of the thin cloud layer in satellite remote sensing is difficult, be it that a given satellite sensor does not have the sensitivity to discriminate thin clouds from background or that the detection algorithm cannot pick up a tenuous cloud. Other examples of tenuous atmospheric layers include aerosols from pollution or distant volcanic eruptions and blowing snow.

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