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.