CALIPSO - the logistical arm of aerial spraying?

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


(continuation of previous post)

...The bottom line here is that there are reasons to study aerosol particulates in cirrus clouds that have nothing to do with the cirrus clouds that form from contrails. Even if they were studying the climate effects of contrail-produced-cirrus clouds, how is that proof of nefarious intent?

This tool could be a wonderful warning system. It seems like it could potentially warn us of incoming radioactive clouds or fly-bys of concentrated pollutants. And yet we don't get alerts of aerosol clouds traversing our vicinity. No. We get pollen alerts. Meanwhile this system tracks artificial cirrus all around the globe giving status reports on what they themselves call 'product.' And the latest from CALIPSO...the reporting of aerosol optical properties. Why?

www-calipso.larc.nasa.gov...

CALIPSO combines an active lidar instrument with passive infrared and visible imagers to probe the vertical structure and properties of thin clouds and aerosols over the globe.

29-December-2011:The CALIPSO Team released a new lidar level 3 data product. The lidar level 3 aerosol data product reports monthly mean profiles of aerosol optical properties on a uniform spatial grid.

reply to post by luxordelphi

I think I've shown that CALIPSO is studying cirrus and if CALIPSO is studying cirrus they are studying cirrus aviaticus (cirrus created from jet emissions) because CALIPSO would be hard pressed to find natural cirrus these days.

Tell me you didn't just say that? Do you even research anything before you post things?

Cirrus clouds are very high clouds which appear often in a feather like shape at the sky. They are typically the first clouds of an approaching warm front. So they can be regarded as a first indicator of coming rain. We see that the formation of cirrus clouds at the sky is a very natural phenomenon.

www.atmosphere.mpg.de...

Doesn't seem like they would have a hard time finding natural cirrus clouds, please do some research man it is not that hard to do.

Originally posted by luxordelphi

I think I've shown that CALIPSO is studying cirrus

You "showed" this??

I thought it was right up there on the front page of Calipso as one of het things they are doing - studying clouds - where do you get off trying to take any credit for "showing" this??

.....and if CALIPSO is studying cirrus they are studying cirrus aviaticus (cirrus created from jet emissions) ....

Yay - a logical deduction.....

....because CALIPSO would be hard pressed to find natural cirrus these days.

Oh? And you have any quantitative evidence e to back up this claim, or is it another piece of "evidence" being made up argumentum ex culo??

Here I've seen 3-4 days of cirrus preceding the current rain with not a single contrail in the sky at all in the last week - so I'm going to make an informed guess that you're inventing "evidence"......

so you manage to illustrate how it is possible to arrive at a perfectly reasonable and correct conclusion based on rubbish premise, illustrating a totally bankrupt thought process!!

reply to post by tsurfer2000h

Tell me you didn't just say that? Do you even research anything before you post things?

This is rhetorical - right?

Doesn't seem like they would have a hard time finding natural cirrus clouds, please do some research man it is not that hard to do.

Your statement seems sensible and yet it is complete nonsense. Let's have a look at cirrus aviaticus, the thin clouds caused by jet emissions that CALIPSO is studying and tracking.

In this article from 2008 entitled 'Our Changing Sky':
www.themonsterguide.com...

Patrick Minnis, who seems to be the appointed "anti-chemtrail" spokesman at NASA's Langley Base has an alternative explanation, as a reaearcher he's studied satellite photos of the airplane jetstreams, which occur only when the sky is moist, close to forming thin clouds. What he discovered may sound far-fetched - but the evidence is clear.

For example, a distinctive oval-shaped contrail left behind by a test flight drifted across California for six hours, finally turning into a 60-mile-long cloud system. "We were very excited because it opened our eyes up to the fact that there's possibly a lot of clouds up in the sky that were originally contrails," Minnis said.

So if Patrick Minnis was excited, you can imagine how excited people on the ground were to see these artificial clouds. And just imagine the daily excitement they bring. Imagine also how very exciting to have CALIPSO measuring and tracking them.

In another case, a figure-8 cloud created its own 60-mile swath of clouds over Texas and Louisiana over a nine-hour period.

But there is evidence that contrail clouds can have a big impact on weather patterns. In the wake of Hurricane Nora, researchers got their most dramatic view yet: Moist air blanketed the nation's midsection from Nebraska to Texas, and scores of contrails fused into one enormous cloud - stretching for more than 800 miles.", said Minnis.

The excitement over artificial cirrus continues in europe at a conference of scientists from 2010:
www.globalresearch.ca...

“The spraying schemes seem to be organized in a logical pattern so that the whole of Europe is covered in a 3-day period,” the authors write. The following images cover January 3-5, 2010:

And exciting as those previous examples are, the real excitement is in this study from 2010 published in 2011 which tells us that cirrus aviaticus destroys natural clouds and prevents rain:
www.nature.com...#/f4

We also find that contrail cirrus cause a significant decrease in natural cloudiness,

Locally, the decrease in natural-cirrus coverage (over Europe and the US) amounts to up to 10% of the natural-cirrus coverage or up to 20% of the contrail-cirrus coverage. Furthermore, in the main contrail-cirrus areas of North America and Europe, the optical depth of natural clouds is significantly (at the 95% significance level) reduced by up to 10% owing to the presence of contrail cirrus

6. They remain line-shaped, and therefore easily distinguishable from natural cirrus, for only a fraction of their lifetime.

This implies that in a substantial fraction of the upper troposphere, contrail cirrus can persist in supersaturated air that is cloud-free, thus increasing high cloud coverage

The coverage due to contrail cirrus is as yet unknown because they are difficult to distinguish from natural cirrus in satellite observations

Contrail cirrus change the water budget of the surrounding atmosphere and therefore can have an impact on natural clouds. Water vapour that is deposited on ice particles within contrail cirrus is not available for formation and deposition in natural cirrus any longer. Therefore, contrail cirrus have the potential to modulate the optical properties of natural clouds, delaying their onset and replacing them, which may partly offset the direct climate impact of contrail cirrus. Virtually nothing is known about those cloud and humidity changes

The change in cirrus coverage, calculated by vertically overlapping all ice clouds in a column (Fig. 4b), confirms that the natural-cirrus coverage is decreased owing to the presence of contrail cirrus.

Cirrus aviaticus supplant natural clouds. Their coverage, according to this report, is as yet unknown. I bet CALIPSO knows. So you were saying how easy it is to find natural cirrus?

reply to post by luxordelphi


Firstly, where have you shown that CALIPSO would be "hard pressed" to find a natural cirrus cloud. Your links talks about local reductions in natural cirrus clouds where contrail cirrus clouds are prevalent, but natural cirrus clouds certainly are still extremely common.

Secondly, even if cirrus clouds created from contrails are affecting the formation of naturally occurring cirrus clouds, all that proves is that contrails create cirrus clouds, which is something the chemtrail debunkers have been saying for years. What does that have to do with evidence of a chemtrail conspiracy?

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


Very clever - using latin to get around the T&C and using wikipedia to say it for you. You get some points for that but for your statements on natural cirrus you get nothing. Please see my reply to tsurfer2000h. Ain't nothing natural about this sky.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

Firstly, where have you shown that CALIPSO would be "hard pressed" to find a natural cirrus cloud. Your links talks about local reductions in natural cirrus clouds where contrail cirrus clouds are prevalent, but natural cirrus clouds certainly are still extremely common.

The exception taken was to my statement that CALIPSO would be hard pressed to find natural cirrus. The study says that satellites cannot tell natural cirrus from contrail cirrus except in the first moments of creation when contrail cirrus is still a white line in the sky. Contrail cirrus also eat up natural clouds and prevent the formation of natural clouds. As far as your statement...'but natural cirrus clouds certainly are still extremely common'...how would we know that? We could have school children around the globe looking up and making a note of the white lines that turn into cirrus - there was a thread on ATS about this very thing. That would be one way to verify something. How would we know how many natural cirrus cloud banks were supplanted by cirrus aviaticus? The study says there are instances of overlap but that the end result is not the sum of the two but rather less than the two. And that part of the study, near as I can tell, is modeling and not real world. And I've got to say that if you have school children out searching for cirrus, you're hard pressed.

Secondly, even if cirrus clouds created from contrails are affecting the formation of naturally occurring cirrus clouds, all that proves is that contrails create cirrus clouds, which is something the chemtrail debunkers have been saying for years. What does that have to do with evidence of a chemtrail conspiracy?

Chemtrails are the deliberate creation of cirrus aviaticus composed of only CALIPSO, apparently, knows what. The debunkers contend that there is something quasi-natural in this process citing temperatures and altitudes and the usual blah blah blah about water vapor. Lidar, the laser function used through CALIPSO, is not capable of working with 'water clouds' but only with 'aerosol and ice clouds' because, and I infer, of the limitations of light and water. They use what they call 'backscatter' to get their data. They send the beam out and a small portion is returned having bounced off of something.

I contend that the data for global cirrus aviaticus coverage and incidence is available to CALIPSO and is in fact why CALIPSO is.

reply to post by luxordelphi


Interesting thread.

I have a question that might stray a little.

It seems that the "Glory" satellite was built for something similar. What would you say is the main difference between the two?

I also can't shake off the fact that both "Glory" satellites failed during the the same stage of separation I believe.

One in 2009 and one in 2011. Both of those failures seem like that would have a negative impact on any sort of Geo-Engineering agenda.

Wikipedia Article

Originally posted by luxordelphi
Chemtrails are the deliberate creation of cirrus aviaticus composed of only CALIPSO, apparently, knows what. The debunkers contend that there is something quasi-natural in this process citing temperatures and altitudes and the usual blah blah blah about water vapor.

Citing science, you mean? Contrails are ice clouds, made from water vapor in the air, and in the aircraft exhaust. This has been known since the 1920s.

Lidar, the laser function used through CALIPSO, is not capable of working with 'water clouds' but only with 'aerosol and ice clouds' because, and I infer, of the limitations of light and water. They use what they call 'backscatter' to get their data. They send the beam out and a small portion is returned having bounced off of something.

No true. LIDAR uses light, so it will be blocked by anything that blocks light, like heavy cloud cover. There's nothing special about "water clouds".

I'd highly recommend anyone interested read the project fact sheet, it's very informative:

www.nasa.gov...

Here's an example of LIDAR images from space, the internal structure of clouds is revealed, and they ultimately shadow lower altitudes.

reply to post by dplum517


What an interesting addition to this thread!! And not a side-trip at all because GLORY was intended to be a part of the 'A Train' constellation that is CALIPSO. Also the main equipment for GLORY came from the company Raytheon and that company is Weather Modification.

glory.gsfc.nasa.gov...

The Glory satellite will launch on a Taurus XL launch vehicle from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, located on the central coast of California, and will orbit as part of the Afternoon Constellation, also known as the A-Train, which is a series of Earth-observing satellites flying in close formation. The A-Train orbits the Earth once every 100 minutes.

The Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor (APS) instrument is built by Raytheon Inc. in El Segundo, California. This instrument will measure the size, quantity, refractive index, and shape of aerosols.

www.globalresearch.ca...

Raytheon through its E-Systems subsidiary now owns the patents used to develop the HAARP weather warfare facility at Gakona Alaska. Raytheon is also involved in other areas of weather research for military use, including the activities of its subsidiary in Antarctica, Raytheon Polar Services.

"[E-Systems] is one of the biggest intelligence contractors in the world, doing work for the CIA, defense intelligence organizations, and others. US$1.8 billion of their annual sales are to these organizations, with $800 million for black projects-projects so secret that even the United States Congress isn't told how the money is being spent.

Carbon is a key word here given the dates.

glory.gsfc.nasa.gov...

The Earth's energy balance and the effect on climate requires measuring black carbon soot and other aerosols

The difference between the two - CALIPSO and GLORY? I'd have to say that it looks like GLORY was meant to augment the system with special focus on carbon. Carbon nano tubes were/are in development allegedly as obscurants for the military. A specific focus on a specific experiment involving specific aerosols (the pleasant name for nano) in the atmosphere? Specifically carbon nano tubes?

www.military-training-technology.com...

Specifically, the company has explored the potential to aerosolize carbon nanotubes for obscurant purposes. He explained that while you wouldn’t want to use nanoparticles as a visual obscurant, the ability to take a cubic meter of carbon and stretch it so that it retains its strength in a thinner, more reflective form holds promise for scattering light in the ultraviolet frequencies. And like their potential polymer counterparts, carbon nanotubes are environmentally and toxicologically benign.

And just to qualify the last sentence in the above quote:

www.scientificamerican.com...

Study Says Carbon Nanotubes as Dangerous as Asbestos

aside: the Warfighter article I quoted says that Phase II never went ahead but it was funded so connect the dots there.

As far as what impact the failed launches had on weather modification? I wish it had set things back but IMO all just went on and the only difference was that some tests on the impact of specific weather modification particles were taken up through different avenues.

Originally posted by luxordelphi
...The difference between the two - CALIPSO and GLORY? I'd have to say that it looks like GLORY was meant to augment the system with special focus on carbon. Carbon nano tubes were/are in development allegedly as obscurants for the military. A specific focus on a specific experiment involving specific aerosols (the pleasant name for nano) in the atmosphere? Specifically carbon nano tubes?

www.military-training-technology.com...

Specifically, the company has explored the potential to aerosolize carbon nanotubes for obscurant purposes. He explained that while you wouldn’t want to use nanoparticles as a visual obscurant, the ability to take a cubic meter of carbon and stretch it so that it retains its strength in a thinner, more reflective form holds promise for scattering light in the ultraviolet frequencies. And like their potential polymer counterparts, carbon nanotubes are environmentally and toxicologically benign.

Maybe.

Or perhaps it is studying carbon emissions as they potentially relate to climate change, such as the hydrocarbon exhaust of automobiles and other carbon pollutants.

Here is a description of the "Glory" mission:

The Earth's energy balance and the effect on climate requires measuring black carbon soot and other aerosols, and the total solar irradiance. Glory is a low Earth orbit (LEO) scientific research satellite designed to achieve two major goals:

+ Collect data on the properties of aerosols, including black carbon, in the Earth's atmosphere and climate system. It will enable a greater understanding of the seasonal variability of aerosol properties.

+ Collect data on solar irradiance for the long-term effects on the Earth climate record. Understanding whether the temperature increase and climate changes are by-products of natural events or whether the changes are caused by man-made sources is of primary importance.

reply to post by Uncinus

Citing science, you mean? Contrails are ice clouds, made from water vapor in the air, and in the aircraft exhaust. This has been known since the 1920s.

Thankyou, Uncinus, for providing the fact sheet which was informative to say the least. On your statements, I'm just going to quote from the fact sheet itself.

www.nasa.gov...

In addition, because clouds form on aerosol particles, changes in aerosols can transform clouds, precipitation and atmospheric circulation patterns

Knowing where clouds are in altitude, as well as their composition (ice or water) will help scientists to better understand the affects of clouds on changes in atmospheric circulations and on climate.

It is important that we distinguish among the different types of aerosols and have accurate knowledge of the altitude of aerosol layers

Figures 3a and 3b: The amount of aerosol present when a cloud forms impacts the characteristics of the cloud that forms. Figure 3a shows a “non-polluted” case, and Figure 3b showas a “polluted” case. In both cases, the same amount of water vapor is present, but in the “polluted” case, the water molecules are spread out over many more particles and it takes longer for water droplets to grow large enough to fall as precipitation (see insets).

So I'm going to say no again as previously in this thread and direct you again to the difference between natural and artificial cloud formation from my earlier post to you. Cirrus formation naturally and cirrus formation via jet exhaust are not the same thing. And they produce two different things entirely. Which behave in completely different ways. These are the things that people have been observing and that some parts of scientific research are now starting to confirm. A major one would be that cirrus aviaticus causes drought conditions. CALIPSO is tracking even finer differences than just this and seems to have the ability to differentiate aerosol particle make-up and track different particles as they relate to the formation of thin clouds. We've moved on since the 1920's. We create designer nano particles in a lab. And launch expensive arrays to study their effects in the atmosphere.

No true. LIDAR uses light, so it will be blocked by anything that blocks light, like heavy cloud cover. There's nothing special about "water clouds".

I'm saying no again because the CALIPSO page instructing potential researchers wanting to use the data from CALIPSO warns them of erros in the data on 'water clouds.' Gaul brought this up and it's an excellent point and an unresolved point. I've given my take on it and that is that CALIPSO is studying deliberately created artificial clouds formed by deliberately introduced different types of aerosols using a multitude of delivery systems including jet aircraft. CALIPSO is supposedly studying the verticle height of clouds and yet the data on the verticle height of 'water clouds' is fraught with error. Verticle height of thin clouds is not.

As far as light being blocked by clouds - yes if there's water, apparently, and no if they're aerosol clouds which is what contrail cirrus are.

eosweb.larc.nasa.gov...

the CALIOP extinction retrieval algorithm was developed for retrievals of aerosol and ice clouds, not water clouds.

www.laserfocusworld.com...

July 21, 2008--Scientists have created an optical scattering instrument designed to help determine the shapes and sizes of tiny ice crystals typical of those found in high-altitude clouds, down to the micron level

The research team actually has built two versions of the instrument: one designed to operate on ground-based cloud simulation chambers or to operate in the fuselage of research aircraft; the other, an aerodynamic version that fits under the wing of the aircraft and measures the cloud particles directly as the aircraft flies through the cloud.

"The new instruments should help map out a more complete understanding of complex crystal shapes found in atmospheric clouds, especially cirrus clouds, which on any day can cover more than 20% of the Earth's surface," says Hertfordshire team member Paul Kaye.

Then there is this which seems to say that if the plan was as stated, to study verticle properties of clouds, here would be a way to get it done:

optics.org...

Firing laser pulses into supercooled water creates ice crystals at specific locations in the liquid.

(see next post)

reply to post by Uncinus


(continued from previous post)

Still it doesn't really explain why CALIPSO seems to want to differentiate between 'water clouds' and 'aerosol and ice clouds.' But my answer to you is still no because they do differentiate for whatever reason, nefarious or ignorant or just obscuration of data.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

Or perhaps it is studying carbon emissions as they potentially relate to climate change, such as the hydrocarbon exhaust of automobiles and other carbon pollutants.

Maybe.

Or maybe, from your excerpt, '...measuring black carbon soot and other aerosols, and the total solar irradiance.'

Total Solar Irradiance:

science.jrank.org...

Total solar irradiance is defined as the amount of radiant energy emitted by the Sun over all wavelengths that fall each second on 11 sq ft (1 sq m) outside the earth's atmosphere.

By way of further definition, irradiance is defined as the amount of electromagnetic energy incident on a surface per unit time per unit area. Solar refers to electromagnetic radiation in the spectral range of approximately 1-9 ft (0.30-3 m), where the shortest wavelengths are in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum, the intermediate wavelengths in the visible region, and the longer wavelengths are in the near infrared. Total means that the solar flux has been integrated over all wavelengths to include the contributions from ultraviolet, visible, and infrared radiation.

Black Carbon Nanotubes:

www.zimbio.com...

Carbon Nanotubes Hiding Planets And Stars, The Perfect Black Material

"The carbon nanotube forest can absorb very wide range of electromagnetic wave from ultraviolet up to terahertz," Guo said, "and in principle it can be applied to an arbitrary sized object."

Just how large an object? Guo suggested an intriguing possibility - perhaps entire planets or even stars.

So this offers intriguing possibilities for the reckless as it relates to weather modification experimentation.

Originally posted by luxordelphi
As far as light being blocked by clouds - yes if there's water, apparently, and no if they're aerosol clouds which is what contrail cirrus are.

eosweb.larc.nasa.gov...

the CALIOP extinction retrieval algorithm was developed for retrievals of aerosol and ice clouds, not water clouds.

Aha, I see the source of your confusion. They are not referring to an "aerosol clouds" there. They are talking about three things: aerosols, ice clouds, and (liquid) water clouds. If you read the rest of that page there's a strong seperation between "aerosols" and "clouds".

Contrail cirrus are ice clouds. They are comprised of ice crystals, like cirrus clouds. The differ mostly in the initial particle density, and the shape of the cloud.

And technically, all clouds are aerosols.

en.wikipedia.org...

Technically, an aerosol is a colloid suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas. Examples are clouds, and air pollution such as smog and smoke.

Normally we don't refer to them as such, to differentiate them from non-water aerosols, like these:

Originally posted by luxordelphi
reply to post by Uncinus

 

(continued from previous post)

Still it doesn't really explain why CALIPSO seems to want to differentiate between 'water clouds' and 'aerosol and ice clouds.' But my answer to you is still no because they do differentiate for whatever reason, nefarious or ignorant or just obscuration of data.

I'm not sure what you are saying "no" to.

CALIPSO differentiates between aerosols, ice clouds, and liquid water clouds, because they are different things, so have different physical properties, and hence different effects on the weather and climate.

reply to post by Uncinus


I did a quick search for usages of the term "aerosol clouds".

The only time it's used academically (in meteorology) is to refer to the clouds of aerosols that are formed by volcanoes. It's occasionally used to refer to noctilucent clouds, but as "ice aerosol clouds", which is referring to the fact that it's the ice that's forming the aerosol.

It's never used in connection with contrails, except in "chemtrail" literature.

Originally posted by luxordelphi
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

Very clever - using latin to get around the T&C and using wikipedia to say it for you.

Rationalwiki, not wikipedia!!

And it is not "getting around the T&C" - it is a polite way of saying you are inventing stuff - politeness is not "getting around the T&C" - it is complying with them!!

You get some points for that but for your statements on natural cirrus you get nothing. Please see my reply to tsurfer2000h. Ain't nothing natural about this sky.

there's plenty natural about the sky outside my window - not a trail of any variety in sight, it looks like about 5/8th scattered cumulus at 2-3000 ft with stratus an unknown distance above.

And no-one has ever said that contrails are anything except artificially generated - although the process of water cooling to ice is perfectly natural given the temperatures involved!

just like this persistent contrail - a natural process artificially induced:

reply to post by Uncinus

Aha, I see the source of your confusion. They are not referring to an "aerosol clouds" there. They are talking about three things: aerosols, ice clouds, and (liquid) water clouds. If you read the rest of that page there's a strong seperation between "aerosols" and "clouds".

On the contrary, cloud and aerosol combined as a 'product' are specifically designated and separate from cloud or aerosol.

eosweb.larc.nasa.gov...

Column properties include satellite position data and viewing geometry, information about the surface type and lighting conditions, and the number of features (e.g., cloud and/or aerosol layers) identified within the column.

Contrail cirrus are ice clouds. They are comprised of ice crystals, like cirrus clouds. The differ mostly in the initial particle density, and the shape of the cloud.

No. Contrail cirrus are completely different from natural cirrus. They eat natural clouds and inhibit their formation. They are composed of specific, oftentimes insoluble, aerosols and ice. There is nothing natural about them and they bear no resemblance to natural cirrus. The name itself, cirrus aviaticus, is a blasphemy.

And technically, all clouds are aerosols.

Black carbon nanotubes are not mineral dusts. Take your semantics on down the road.

And I have to say also that rather than concerning themselves with the vertical height of clouds they seem more concerned with the opacity of clouds and aerosol clouds. In fact their opacity flag system says it all.

eosweb.larc.nasa.gov...

In the context of the 5-km CALIOP layer products, a layer is considered opaque if (a) it is the lowest feature detected in a column, and (b) it is not subsequently classified as a surface return. An opacity flag value of 1 indicates an opaque layer; values of 0 indicate transparent layers. Users should be aware that the opacity flag does not indicate that an individual layer is actually opaque in the normal sense of the term. Instead, the opacity flag identifies that layer in which the backscatter signal becomes completely attenuated (i.e., indistinguishable from the background signal level). For those features having an opacity flag of 1, the reported base altitude must be considered as an apparent base, rather than a true base.

Because all features reported in 1/3-km and 1-km layer products are detected at a single horizontal averaging resolution (i.e., either at 1/3-km or 1-km), the opacity flag is not reported. When using these products, opacity, in the sense described above, can be assessed as follows. If the surface was detected (i.e., the lidar surface altitude field does not contain fill values) then there are no opaque layers in the column. If the surface was not detected, then the lowest layer in the column is considered to be opaque.

CALIPSO differentiates between aerosols, ice clouds, and liquid water clouds, because they are different things, so have different physical properties, and hence different effects on the weather and climate.

CALIPSO differentiates between 5 (at a time or so) of aerosol particles. Since their focus is on clouds, I'm going to have to say that they differentiate between 5 different particles at a time comprising cirrus aviaticus. Because their 'backscatter' approach becomes error ridden the further in from the top layer it gets, I'm going to have to say that no no no they don't appear to be that concerned with aerosols as an alone item. And they appear to be wholly unconcerned with aerosol layers that are not cirrus aviaticus closer to the surface of earth.

And none of this speaks to Gauls' point which still remains unsolved and that point what exactly is the difference in a 'water cloud' and an 'ice cloud' if not the fact that cirrus doesn't produce rain. Or are we talking about the moment in time where it starts to rain? Or are we talking about cirrus aviaticus which will never rain and will, in fact, produce drought conditions? And as far as light being blocked - ice is not supposed to be a factor so when is it blocked? - just in the moment that it starts to condense and get ready to rain? No...the real issue is that CALIPSO is concerned with the study of artificial clouds and could care less about any other clouds.