GLAS Spaceborne Lidar Observations of Clouds and Aerosols

The NASA Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS), launched into orbit in January, 2003 aboard the freeflying Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESAT), is the first long term atmospheric lidar in earth orbit. Since February of 2003, GLAS has operated during intermittent time segments of about 4 to 8 week duration. During its periods of operation, GLAS provides continuous and nearly pole to pole atmospheric lidar observations of clouds and aerosols from 0-40km altitude. GLAS is sensitive to optically rarefied particulate layers and is capable of detecting multiple layers if the higher layers are optically thin. An overview of GLAS and its some of its level 2 and level 3 cloud and aerosol products are described. Public access to channels to GLAS level 2 products is available through the internet.