PNNL

Abstract

In late April 2006, NASA launched CloudSat, an Earth observing satellite that uses a near-nadir-pointing millimeter-wavelength radar to probe the vertical structure of clouds and precipitation. The first step in using CloudSat measurements is to distinguish clouds and other hydrometeors from radar noise. In this article we describe the operational CloudSat hydrometeor detection algorithm, discuss difficulties due to surface clutter, and show several examples from the early mission. We also provide a preliminary comparison of the CloudSat hydrometeor detection algorithm with lidarbased results from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite.