Retrieval of aerosol extinction-to-backscatter ratios by combining ground-based and space-borne lidar elastic scattering measurements

A technique to determine the aerosol extinction-to-backscatter ratio (lidar ratio) as well as extinction and backscatter coefficients from simultaneous ground-based and space-borne lidar measurements is proposed. This technique can be applied in presence of more than one aerosol layer. To test the reliability of this technique, a numerical simulation has been performed. Moreover, the technique has been applied to an actual case by analyzing data from Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) and Napoli-Earlinet lidar measurements. The results show that the values of lidar ratio and backscatter coefficient retrieved by this technique are in good agreement with the ones obtained from Raman measurements. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America