Validation Plans for the EarthCARE Aerosol Products Using the ATLID Lidar Simulator and the ESA and ACTRIS lidar systems

Peristera Paschou; Eleni Marinou; David Donovan; Gerd-Jan van Zadelhoff; Jos de Kloe; Kalliopi Artemis Voudouri; Maria Tsichla; Vassilis Amiridis

doi:10.1051/epjconf/202636208017

Open Access

Issue		EPJ Web Conf. Volume 362, 2026 31^st International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC 31) Held Together with the 22^nd Coherent Laser Radar Conference (CLRC 22)


Article Number		08017
Number of page(s)		4
Section		Current and Future Space Lidar Missions
DOI		https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202636208017
Published online		09 April 2026

EPJ Web of Conferences 362, 08017 (2026)
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202636208017

Validation Plans for the EarthCARE Aerosol Products Using the ATLID Lidar Simulator and the ESA and ACTRIS lidar systems

Peristera Paschou^(a)^,(b), Eleni Marinou^(a), David Donovan^(c), Gerd-Jan van Zadelhoff^(c), Jos de Kloe^(c), Kalliopi Artemis Voudouri^(a)^,(b), Maria Tsichla^(a) and Vassilis Amiridis^(a)

^(a) Institute of Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing, National Observatory of Athens, Penteli, GR-15326, Greece
^(b) Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics, Physics Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, GR-54124, Greece
^(c) Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, de Bilt, NL-3731, the Netherlands Lead Author e-mail address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published online: 9 April 2026

Abstract

The EarthCARE mission for monitoring aerosol, cloud and precipitation, and for radiation closure studies will be launched in May 2024. In preparation of the calibration and validation of the Atmospheric Lidar (ATLID) onboard the platform, a lidar simulator tool has been developed for providing realistic simulations of the ATLID lidar signals and the Level 1 (L1) products. The simulated ATLID L1 profiles are used to derive realistic ATLID Level 2A (L2A) profiles of aerosol properties. In this study, the realistic ATLID L2A profiles are compared with the corresponding L2 profiles from the eVe lidar, ESA's ground reference lidar for cal/val studies, and the NOA-PollyXT lidar, an ACTRIS lidar system at the PANGEA station, aiming to investigate the sensitivity of the ATLID design on real aerosol layers. Moreover, key aspects of the validation of the aerosol EarthCARE products using the eVe lidar system as ground reference will be discussed.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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