WMO OSCAR | Details for Instrument ATLAS

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Instrument: ATLAS

Instrument details

Acronym	ATLAS
Full name	Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System
Purpose	Polar ice sheet thickness and topography. Also cloud top height and aerosol
Short description	Single wavelength lidar operating at 1064 nm. A Laser Reference System (LRS) gives absolute pointing knowledge.
Background	Evolution of GLAS flown on ICESat
Scanning Technique	Nadir-only viewing, sampling at 170 m intervals along track, near continuous profiling
Resolution	Horizontal: 66 m IFOV sampled at 170 m intervals along track. Vertical: 10 cm surface, 200 m cloud top
Coverage / Cycle	Global coverage in 183 d (orbit repeat cycle) leaving cross-track 2.5 km gaps at 80° latitude, 15 km at equator
Mass	298 kg	Power	300 W	Data Rate	450 bps

Providing Agency	NASA
Instrument Maturity	Backed by strong heritage
Utilization Period:	2019 to 2023
Last update:	2021-06-23

Detailed characteristics

Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (NASA)
- ICESat-2 (see instrument status) Sep 2018 - 2023

Instrument classification

Earth observation instrument
Active and radio-occultation sensor
Lidar (Doppler lidar, backscatter lidar, lidar Dial, lidar altimeter)

WIGOS Subcomponents

Subcomponent 2
Lidar (single wavelength) (in addition to radar missions mentioned in Component 1)
Lidar (Altimeter - for surface)

Mission objectives

Primary mission objectives

Coastal sea level (tide)
Geoid
Gravity field
Ice sheet topography
Ocean dynamic topography
Sea-ice elevation
Sea-ice thickness

Evaluation of Measurements

The following list indicates which measurements can typically be retrieved from this category of instrument. To see a full Gap Analysis by Variable, click on the respective variable.

Note: table can be sorted by clicking on the column headers
Note: * Primary mission objective.

Variable	Relevance for measuring this variable	Operational limitations	Explanation
Aerosol column burden	3 - high	Cloud sensitive.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Aerosol mass mixing ratio	3 - high	Cloud sensitive.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Aerosol Optical Depth	3 - high	Cloud sensitive.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Biomass	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.. Index only.. Along-track only.	Total biomass inferred from the canopy
Cloud drop effective radius	5 - marginal	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Cloud ice	5 - marginal	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Cloud ice Total Column	5 - marginal	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Cloud ice effective radius	5 - marginal	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Cloud liquid water (CLW)	5 - marginal	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Cloud liquid water (CLW) total column	5 - marginal	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Cloud optical depth	1 - primary	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Cloud top height	1 - primary	Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Coastal sea level (tide)*	5 - marginal	Cloud sensitive.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from sea-ice lidar altimeter
Freezing level height in clouds	5 - marginal	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter. Detected as discontinuity
Geoid*	2 - very high	Long time series needed.. Along-track only.	Geoid derived from multi-temporal analysis of lidar altimetry data
Glacier topography	1 - primary	Cloud sensitive.. Long time for mapping.. Along-track only.	Specifically designed for sea ice elevation, also useful over land
Gravity field*	4 - fair	Partial information (geoid).	Gravity field derived from multi-temporal analysis of lidar altimetry data
Height of the top of PBL	3 - high	Cloud sensitive.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter. PBL top detected as discontinuity
Height of the tropopause	3 - high	Cloud sensitive.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter. Tropopause height detected as discontinuity
Ice sheet topography*	1 - primary	Cloud sensitive.. Long time for mapping.. Along-track only.	Specifically designed for sea ice elevation, also useful over land
Land surface topography	1 - primary	Cloud sensitive.. Long time for mapping.. Along-track only.	Specifically designed for sea ice elevation, also useful over land
Melting layer depth in clouds	5 - marginal	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter. Detected as discontinuity
Ocean dynamic topography*	5 - marginal	Cloud sensitive.. Long time for mapping.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from sea-ice lidar altimeter
PSC occurrence	1 - primary	Along-track only.	NIR lidar altimeter
Sea-ice elevation*	1 - primary	Cloud sensitive.. Along-track only.	NIR lidar altimeter specifically designed for ice elevation
Sea-ice thickness*	1 - primary	Cloud sensitive.. Change detection only.. Along-track only.	NIR lidar altimeter specifically designed for ice elevation. Thickness inferred by ice model
Aerosol volcanic ash	3 - high	Cloud sensitive.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter
Aerosol volcanic ash Total Column	3 - high	Cloud sensitive.. Along-track only.	Opportunity information from lidar altimeter