WMO OSCAR | Details for Instrument VCL

No JavaScript detected
Usage of this Website will be severly limited without JavaScript. Please enable JavaScript in your Browser.

Instrument: VCL

Instrument details

Acronym	VCL
Full name	Vegetation Canopy Lidar
Purpose	Accurate topography and its changes to monitor biomass, ecosystems and ice
Short description	Wavelength 1064 nm. Multi-beam capability
Background	Initially proposed as a stand-alone mission in the framework of the Earth System Science Pathfinder programme (ESSP)
Scanning Technique	Nadir-view and 5 cross-track spots 5-km spaced, for a total swath of 25 km
Resolution	25 m horizontal, 1 m vertical
Coverage / Cycle	Two weeks for cells of 70 km
Mass	225 kg	Power	336 W	Data Rate	0.8 Mbps

Providing Agency	NASA
Instrument Maturity	Demonstration pending
Utilization Period:	TBD
Last update:	2017-03-31

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

Deformation, Ecosystem Structure, and Dynamics of Ice (NASA)
- DESDynI (see instrument status) TBD - TBD

Instrument classification

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

WIGOS Subcomponents

Subcomponent 3
Radar and lidar for vegetation mapping
Multi-footprint lidar altimeter for vegetation mapping

Mission objectives

Primary mission objectives

Biomass
Glacier topography
Land surface topography

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