Iterative determination of the aerosol extinction coefficient profile and the mean extinction-to-backscatter ratio from multiangle lidar data

A method to determine the aerosol extinction coefficient profile and the mean extinction-to-backscatter ratio from scanning lidar data has been developed. The only a priori information required is the molecular extinction coefficient profile. In this initial study we consider the simplest case where the extinction-to-backscattering ratio is constant with height. The extinction-to-backscatter ratio is determined iteratively by comparing the retrieved particulate extinction coefficient profiles obtained with two independent multiangle inversion methods from the same set of lidar data. The iterative method has been tested with synthetic data and was successfully applied to experimental data.