Consistency of the single calculus chain optical products with archived measurements from an EARLINET lidar station

A long-term analysis and climatology of aerosol backscatter and extinction coefficients profiles using a five-year study period lidar dataset derived from a multiwavelenth Raman lidar at Thessaloniki station is presented. All measurements have been processed with the latest version of the Single Calculus Chain (SCCv5.1.6) fully automated algorithm, which has been developed to provide a common lidar processing tool, within EARLINET (European Aerosol Research Lidar NETwork) stations. The optical products delivered by the SCC tool have already been compared with the optical products derived from the operational algorithm of Thessaloniki (THessaloniki Aerosol LIdar Algorithm-THALIA) and discussed in terms of inhomogeneities. In this contribution, we analyze these products for climatological purposes, in order to investigate the aerosol columnar properties over Thessaloniki lidar station, drawing conclusions about the issues to be considered when switching from the current operational algorithm to the SCCv5. The SCCv5 algorithm is evaluated for the AOD both for 355 and 532 nm. The agreement with THALIA algorithm seems promising with correlations of 0.89 and 0.84, respectively, and absolute deviations within the range of the EARLINET quality requirements. Time series of the AOD at 355 nm denote a decrease of 0.017 per year in the free troposphere, a trend that is also shown in the AOD values derived from the operational algorithm (0.014). A decrease of 0.01 per year in the lower troposphere is also noted from the SCC, whereas the corresponding AOD values derived from the operational algorithm denote a decrease of 0.017.