Synergism of lidar and SAGE II aerosol measurements:: The Mt. Pinatubo case.

The maturity reached by lidar and satellite aerosols measurements open new perspectives for increasing our knowledge about aerosol physical properties and space-temporal distributions. The perspective of combining both types of datasets is stimulating but at the same time represents a challenge, because of the obstacles which impede the simple combination of the datasets. After a successful intercomparison of SAGE II satellite instrument and a global network of lidar aerosol measurements two application of the synergy between both datasets are presented. The first, filling gaps in the SAGE II vertical aerosol extinction profiles using lidar measurements in the core of the Mt Pinatubo aerosol cloud. The second, evaluating the aerosol natural variability for the same aerosol cloud using both lidar and SAGE II data.