Systematic comparison of dust BSC-DREAM8b modeled profiles with Potenza EARLINET lidar database

In this paper, we report the first systematic comparison between dust extinction profiles forecasted by a model and measured by a Raman lidar. We use the BSC-DREAM8b model, one of the most widely used dust regional models in the Mediterranean, and Potenza EARLINET lidar profiles for Saharan dust cases, the largest one-site database of dust extinction profiles. A total of 310 dust cases were compared for the May 2000- July 2012 period. The model well reconstructs the measured layering: profiles are correlated within 5%of significance for 60%of the cases and the dust layer center of mass as measured by lidar and modeled by BSC-DREAM8b differ on average 0.3±1.0 km. Cases with a dust optical depth lower than 0.1 account for 70% of uncorrelated profiles. Although the good agreement in terms of profile shape and extinction value order of magnitude, the comparison with extinction profiles measured by the Raman lidar shows that BSC-DREAM8b typically underestimate the dust extinction coefficient in particular below 3.5 km and for low concentrations and overestimates the occurrence of dust layer top height above 15 km.