20 March 2023
The Raman Lidar Profiles – Feature detection and Extinction (RLPROF-FEX) VAP provides height- and time-resolved estimates of cloud and aerosol optical properties. These include estimates of aerosol backscatter coefficient, extinction, scattering ratio, lidar ratio, and linear depolarization ratio. The VAP also provides feature masks that can be used to identify regions containing ice or liquid clouds. The nominal temporal resolution is 2 minutes, and the nominal vertical resolution is 30 meters. Data coverage for the aerosol optical properties (i.e., backscatter, extinction, scattering ratio, and lidar ratio) generally ranges from roughly 200 meters to 4 kilometers above the surface, whereas cloud properties such as the cloud mask and the linear depolarization can be reliably estimated below roughly 18 kilometers. With careful quality control, the output from this VAP can be used by scientists for process studies, climatology development, instrument intercomparison studies, and model validation.