A new value-added product (VAP) called Clouds Optically Gridded by Stereo (COGS) provides a four-dimensional (4D) map of cloudiness. This map is generated by multiview stereo reconstruction using a ring of stereo cameras at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility’s Southern Great Plains (SGP) atmospheric observatory. The COGS data are particularly useful for studying the life cycles and macrophysical attributes of shallow cumulus clouds.
COGS covers a 6-by-6-by-6-kilometer region at the SGP Central Facility centered at the position of the Doppler lidar. The grid resolution is 50 meters in horizontal and vertical directions and 20 seconds in time.
Evaluation data are available for shallow cumuli events from August 31, 2017, through December 20, 2019.
COGS is generated by stitching together three-dimensional (3D) reconstructed cloud points from the three pairs of ARM stereo cameras at the SGP.
The images and cloud point data used to generate COGS are also available in the ARM Data Center as the Point Cloud of Cloud Points (PCCP) VAP.
The COGS data can be used and evaluated now. Later in 2021, COGS will provide data from the ARM stereo camera ring with a delay of three to four months.
More information about COGS is available on the VAP web page.
To ask questions or provide feedback to improve this evaluation product, please contact Rusen Öktem or David M. Romps.
Access the data in the ARM Data Center. (Go here to create an account to download the data.)
To cite the COGS data, please use doi:10.5439/1644322.
# # #ARM is a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by nine DOE national laboratories.