COMPARISON OF AEROSOL VERTICAL PROFILES FROM CALIOP AND GROUND-BASED LIDAR IN BELGRADE, SERBIA

Atmospheric aerosols have significant effect on climate and air pollution. However, they are still not well represented in models due to large variability of their sources and limited spatial and temporal measurements of their properties. The Balkan region is marked by significant air pollution, including aerosols originating from regional sources and those transported from distant source regions, such as North Africa. However, it is characterized by scarce ground-based measurements of aerosol properties. Raman lidar in Belgrade provides information on vertical profiles of aerosol optical properties, contributing to understanding the effects of aerosols in this region on climate and environment. This lidar system performs elastic backscatter and Raman measurements at the wavelengths of 355 nm and 387 nm, respectively. Here, the elastic backscatter signal is analyzed to obtain vertical profiles of aerosol backscatter coefficient at 355 nm in 30-min intervals. Satellite-based lidar measurements, such as CALIOP (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization) onboard CALIPSO (Cloud Aerosol Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation), provide information on vertically-resolved aerosol optical properties on a global scale. We present study cases of comparison of vertical distribution of aerosol layers, based on backscatter coefficients from ground-based lidar in Belgrade and CALIOP, during CALIPSO overpasses. The analyzed cases correspond to clear-sky and different aerosol conditions.