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Jin, Y., K. Kai, H. Okamoto, and Y. Hagihara, 2014: Improvement of CALIOP cloud masking algorithms for better estimation of dust extinction profiles. J. Meteor. Soc. Japan, 92, 433-455.
https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2014-502

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Highlights:

• Misclassification of dust as clouds in the CALIOP cloud mask (C2) is improved. Strong signals from dust storms lead to misclassify dust into clouds (Fig. 1(a) and 1(b)). Using a linear discriminant function (LDF), misclassified clouds are successfully discriminated (Fig. 1(c)) and resulting data mask correctly classifies the misclassified clouds into dust (Fig. 1(d)).
• The cloud mask is most frequently misclassified in the Taklimakan Desert. The proportion of misclassified clouds to the totally observed dust (dust + misclassified clouds) is ∼34.6%.
• Dust extinction profiles are investigated after the cloud mask improvement. Comparison of our results with CALIOP level 3 products indicates that the extinction profile using the improved cloud mask (C2’) is up to twice larger than that of CALIOP level 3 products (Fig. 2) in the Taklimakan Desert.