{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,23]],"date-time":"2026-04-23T19:53:54Z","timestamp":1776974034705,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":21,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"23","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,2]],"date-time":"2020-12-02T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1606867200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Seventh Framework Programme","award":["603557 (StratoClim)"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["603557 (StratoClim)"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001665","name":"Agence Nationale de la Recherche","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["TTL-Xing"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["TTL-Xing"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001665","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Clouds in the tropics have an important role in the energy budget, atmospheric circulation, humidity, and composition of the tropical-to-global upper-troposphere\u2013lower-stratosphere. Due to its non-sun-synchronous orbit, the Cloud\u2013Aerosol Transport System (CATS) onboard the International Space Station (ISS) provided novel information on clouds from space in terms of overpass time in the period of 2015\u20132017. In this paper, we provide a seasonally resolved comparison of CATS characterization of high clouds (between 13 and 18 km altitude) in the tropics with well-established CALIPSO (Cloud\u2013Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) data, both in terms of clouds\u2019 occurrence and cloud optical properties (optical depth). Despite the fact that cloud statistics for CATS and CALIOP are generated using intrinsically different local overpass times, the characterization of high clouds occurrence and optical properties in the tropics with the two instruments is very similar. Observations from CATS underestimate clouds occurrence (up to 80%, at 18 km) and overestimate the occurrence of very thick clouds (up to 100% for optically very thick clouds, at 18 km) at higher altitudes. Thus, the description of stratospheric overshoots with CATS and CALIOP might be different. While this study hints at the consistency of CATS and CALIOP clouds characterizaton, the small differences highlighted in this work should be taken into account when using CATS for estimating cloud properties and their variability in the tropics.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs12233946","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,2]],"date-time":"2020-12-02T20:25:49Z","timestamp":1606940749000},"page":"3946","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Comparison of ISS\u2013CATS and CALIPSO\u2013CALIOP Characterization of High Clouds in the Tropics"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7440-2350","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Pasquale","family":"Sellitto","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Syst\u00e8mes Atmosph\u00e9riques (LISA), UMR CNRS 7583, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL), Universit\u00e9 Paris-Est-Cr\u00e9teil, Universit\u00e9 de Paris, 94000 Cr\u00e9teil, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6251-9444","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Silvia","family":"Bucci","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratoire de M\u00e9t\u00e9orologie Dynamique (LMD), UMR CNRS 8539, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL), \u00c9cole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure-Paris Sciences et Lettres, Sorbonne Universit\u00e9, \u00c9cole Polytechnique, 75000 Paris, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3756-7794","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bernard","family":"Legras","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratoire de M\u00e9t\u00e9orologie Dynamique (LMD), UMR CNRS 8539, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL), \u00c9cole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure-Paris Sciences et Lettres, Sorbonne Universit\u00e9, \u00c9cole Polytechnique, 75000 Paris, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Boucher, O., Randall, D., Artaxo, P., Bretherton, C., Feingold, G., Forster, P., Kerminen, V.M., Kondo, Y., Liao, H., and Lohmann, U. 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