Colloquium: Dave Winker

Location

Physics : 401

Date & Time

November 16, 2016, 3:30 pm4:30 pm

Description

TITLE:  A Decade of Global Lidar Profiling

ABSTRACT:  
Conceived in the mid-1990’s, CALIPSO was developed as a collaboration between NASA and and the French space agency CNES, and launched together with CloudSat in April 2006 into formation with the Aqua satellite.  A decade of experience with CALIPSO and CloudSat has demonstrated the importance of active profiling and put to rest a number of concerns regarding active sensors.  The original CALIPSO objective was tropospheric profiling of aerosols and clouds, but numerous additional applications have been developed since launch, ranging from the stratosphere to below the ocean surface.  Flying in formation with the A-train has provided opportunities to explore a variety of synergies, leading to new measurement capabilities. CALIPSO observations, together with the A-Train, have significantly advanced our knowledge of the Earth System, prompting new questions. This talk will summarize some of the advances of the last decade and discuss challenges for the future.