Report on the new EARLINET database Relational Model

The European Aerosol Research Lidar Network, EARLINET, established in 2000 as a research project, has the goal of creating a quantitative, comprehensive, and statistically significant database for the horizontal, vertical and temporal distribution of aerosols on a continental scale. Since then EARLINET has continued to provide the most extensive collection of ground-based data for the aerosol vertical distribution all over Europe. At present, 31 stations distributed all over Europe are part of the network. Each station of the network has a PI (Principal Investigator) and key personnel. EARLINET institutional members are obliged to follow the rules as defined in the EARLINET constitution. These include (among others) the performance of regular measurements and regular quality assessment. Currently the EARLINET database is the largest and most representative database of aerosol optical parameters obtained from LIDAR measurements on continental scale. It is freely available and it made possible several studies of atmospheric aerosols on European scale. Nowadays the EARLINET database is facing a complete reshaping to meet the wide request for more intuitive products and to face the even wider request related to the new initiatives such as Copernicus, the European Earth observation programme. The new design has been carried out in continuity with the past, to take advantage from long-term database. In particular, the new structure will provide information suitable for synergy with other instruments, near real time (NRT) applications, validation and process studies and climate applications. In this report we will describe the new EARLINET database Relational Model and how the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) (Wilkinson et al., 2016; Hodson et al., 2018) are taken into account in the data curation.