ESA Cloud Climate Change Initiative (Cloud_cci): ATSR2-AATSR monthly gridded cloud properties, version 3.0

This dataset is one of the 6 datasets generated in Cloud_cci; all of them being based on passive-imager satellite measurements. This dataset is based on measurements from the ATSR2 and AATSR instruments (onboard the ERS2 and ENVISAT satellites) and contains a variety of cloud properties which were derived employing the Community Cloud retrieval for Climate (CC4CL; Sus et al., 2018; McGarragh et al., 2018) retrieval framework.

The core cloud properties contained in the Cloud_cci ATSR2-AATSRv3 dataset are cloud mask/fraction, cloud phase, cloud top pressure/height/temperature, cloud optical thickness, cloud effective radius and cloud liquid/ice water path. Spectral cloud albedo is also included as experimental product. The cloud properties are available at different processing levels: This particular dataset contains Level-3C (monthly averages and histograms) data, while Level-3U (globally gridded, unaveraged data fields) is also available as a separate dataset.