Global Aerosol Climatology from ICESat-2 Lidar Observations

This study presents a global aerosol climatology derived from six years (October 2018–October 2024) of the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) observations, using a U-Net Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) machine learning algorithm for Cloud–Aerosol Discrimination (CAD). Despite ICESat-2’s design primarily as an altimetry mission with a single-wavelength, low-power, high-repetition-rate laser, ICESat-2 effectively captures global aerosol distribution patterns and can provide valuable insights to bridge the observational gap between the Cloud–Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) and Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) missions to support future spaceborne lidar mission design. The machine learning approach outperforms traditional thresholding methods, particularly in complex conditions of cloud embedded in aerosol, owing to a finer spatiotemporal resolution. Our results show that annually, between 60°S and 60°N, 78.4%, 17.0%, and 4.5% of aerosols are located within the 0–2 km, 2–4 km, and 4–6 km altitude ranges, respectively. Regional analyses cover the Arabian Sea (ARS), Arabian Peninsula (ARP), South Asia (SAS), East Asia (EAS), Southeast Asia (SEA), the Americas, and tropical oceans. Vertical aerosol structures reveal strong trans-Atlantic dust transport from the Sahara in summer and biomass burning smoke transport from the Savanna during dry seasons. Marine aerosol belts are most prominent in the tropics, contrasting with earlier reports of the Southern Ocean maxima. This work highlights the importance of vertical aerosol distributions needed for more accurate quantification of the aerosol–cloud interaction influence on radiative forcing for improving global climate models.