Applications of theorerical optical parameters from a transport model to the quantification and qualification of aerosol populations of a lidar in space data retrieval

The Lidar In space Technology Experiment (LITE) provided for the first time highly detailed vertical profiles of aerosol and clouds from the Earth's surface to the middle stratosphere. Validated theoretical results from a Model of Atmospheric Transport and Chemistry (MATCH) can help quantify and qualify the aerosol population as well as identify some consistent patterns of aerosol components for a certain region. The goal of this work is to estimate the degree of confidence on MATCH's theoretical results, comparing them to the data set retrieved by LITE, in order to improve the lidar aerosol extinction-to-backscatter ratio retrieval algorithm to be applied to the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO), NASA's next mission that will be orbiting a Lidar around the Earth.