Earthdata Forum

I am trying to plot Extinction_Coefficient_532 from Level-2 Aerosol profile data. Please see the python script (https://github.com/hdfeos/forum/discussions/31)

I’m seeking clarification regarding the indexing of data values and altitude bins in CALIPSO products. According to Table 1 in the CALIPSO documentation (https://asdc.larc.nasa.gov/documents/calipso/quality_summaries/CALIOP_L1ProfileProducts_3.01.pdf), the altitude bin index starts at the top (40 km).

To address this, I reversed the order of data using [::-1] in the script for plotting. However, I’m unsure if this approach is correct and would appreciate feedback from the community.
Thanks!

Hello,

Yes, the highest altitude is reported first. By the way here is a more recent version of the document you provided:
https://www-calipso.larc.nasa.gov/resources/calipso_users_guide/data_desc/cal_lid_l1_v4-51_desc.php

However this should not affect your plot. I took out the indexing that you did to reverse the order ([::-1]) for the variables EXT_532_mean and altitude and got the same graph.

If you want to reverse the y-axis you can use plt.gca().invert_yaxis() (for x-axis use plt.gca().invert_xaxis()). You will get something like this:


Thanks,
ASDC