CALIPSO Resources - CALIPSO

• Importance of Understanding Aerosols: NASA Earth Observatory Article on Aerosols
• Importance of Understanding Clouds: NASA Earth Observatory Article on Clouds

CALIPSO data has been used in more than 1,500 scientific reports and published research papers. A number of these are directly relevant to human life and the environment.

Learn more about CALIPSO Data.

• Visualizing Clouds & Aerosols: NASA Earth Observatory Global Map Animations

• Saharan Dust/Amazon
• How does lidar work? (Produced by NEON Education)
• Secrets of Aerosols and Clouds​

• Aerosols Protocol
  • Students use a red/green sun photometer to measure the amount of sunlight reaching the ground when clouds do not cover the sun.
• Clouds Protocol
  • Students estimate the amount of cloud and contrail cover, observe which types of clouds are visible and count the number of each type of contrail.
• Could Chart:
  • English, French and Spanish
  • Arabic, Chinese and Russian
  • Canadian
  • Quechua
• Contrail Chart:
  • English, French and Spanish
  • Russian, Chinese and Arabic
• Contrail Formation Guide:
  • English
  • French
  • Spanish

• Observing, Describing, and Identifying Clouds
  • Students begin to learn cloud types and their names.
• Estimating Cloud Cover
  • Students practice estimating how much of the sky is covered by clouds.
• Cloud Watch
  • Students monitor clouds and weather to begin to understand the connections between the two.
• Observing Visibility and Sky Color
  • Students observe sky color and learn to associate color with the presence or absence of aerosols.
• Calculating Relative Air Mass
  • ​​​​​​​Students are introduced to the concepts of solar elevation angle and relative air mass and learn how to determine relative air mass from measurements of solar elevation angle.
• Seasonal Patterns of Aerosols (Middle/High)
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​This lesson explores high and low values of aerosol optical depth and asks students to investigate seasonal patterns of aerosols.