GLAS/ICESat L2 Global Cloud Heights for Multi-layer Clouds, Version 18

• Main Author: National Snow and Ice Data Center
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Subjects: Ice Sheet; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://search.dataone.org/view/sha256:bdd9b84d3239de15bd3cecad2d9582b1e6f27c8f5e9d7ef1528b1c455c719c41

The Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) instrument on the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) provides global measurements of polar ice sheet elevation to discern changes in ice volume (mass balance) over time. Secondary objectives of GLAS are to measure sea ice roughness and thickness, cloud and atmospheric properties, land topography, vegetation canopy heights, ocean surface topography, and surface reflectivity. GLAS has a 1064 nm laser channel for surface altimetry and dense cloud heights, and a 532 nm lidar channel for the vertical distribution of clouds and aerosols. Level-2 cloud heights for multi-layer clouds (GLA09) contain cloud layer top and bottom height data at sampling rates of 4 sec, 1 sec, 5 Hz, and 40 Hz. Each data granule has an associated browse product that users can quickly view to determine the general quality of the data in the granule. Browse products consist of image plots of key parameters and statistics. Data are in scaled integer binary format, big-endian (Unix) byte order, and are available via FTP.