Consistency between backscatter lidar products and visibility range

Abstract

We present a consistency of the following values: the aerosol backscatter coefficient (ABC) and top of Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL), derived from backscatter lidar measurements from one side, and the visually determined Visibility Range (VR) from the other. The VR is determined towards long-range reference topographic targets in horizontal or slant path, while the lidar measurement is performed in vertical. The mean extinction coefficient along line-of-sights to reference topographic objects is calculated from the lidar derived back-scatter coefficient with model aerosol extinction-to-backscatter ratio (EBR), when necessary, taking into account the ABL top. The mean extinction coefficient along the line-of-sight to the reference target is also determined from the VR via Koschmieder equation. The correlation coefficient between the two data sets is R2 = 0.86 for all data points and R2 = 0.91 when selecting out the points with possible VR systematic error at the farthest reference target.