## 2 Validation and Ancillary Dataset
### Caliop  
CALIOP is one of the payloads onboard the CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) satellite, launched in April 2006. The instrument was the first polarization-sensitive lidar in space [15] and provides high-resolution vertical profiles of aerosols and clouds with footprints of 70 m along the ground. CALIOP utilizes three receiver channels, two of which measure the parallel- and perpendicular-polarized components of the backscattered signal from linearly polarized pulses at 532 nm and the third detects backscatter intensity at 1064 nm. Using the three-channel signal, layer and vertical profile information of aerosols and clouds along with their  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Site** & **Lon. (\({}^{\circ}\)E)** & **Lat. (\({}^{\circ}\)N)** & **Number of Data Points** & **Initial Day** & **Final Day** \\ \hline Anmyon & 126.33 & 36.54 & 4736 & 4 Jan. 2005 & 25 Nov. 2007 \\ Bac\_Giang & 106.23 & 21.29 & 4332 & 8 Jan. 2005 & 17 Sep. 2007 \\ BackGarden\_GZ & 113.02 & 23.30 & 316 & 22 June 2006 & 27 July 2006 \\ Beijing & 116.38 & 39.98 & 20,828 & 2 Jan. 2005 & 30 Nov. 2007 \\ Chen-Kung\_Univ & 120.22 & 23.00 & 5964 & 2 Jan. 2005 & 10 July 2007 \\ Dalamazdgal & 104.42 & 43.58 & 11,891 & 2 Jan. 2005 & 10 Mar. 2007 \\ EPA-NCU & 121.19 & 24.97 & 2795 & 18 July 2006 & 27 Dec. 2007 \\ Gossan\_SNU & 126.16 & 33.29 & 3655 & 6 Jan. 2005 & 16 Dec. 2007 \\ Gwangju\_GST & 126.84 & 35.23 & 6099 & 3 Jan. 2005 & 13 Dec. 2007 \\ Hangzhou\_ZFU & 119.73 & 30.26 & 888 & 8 Aug. 2007 & 14 Dec. 2007 \\ Hefei & 117.16 & 31.91 & 1241 & 17 Nov. 2005 & 20 Dec. 2007 \\ Hong\_Kong\_Hok\_Tsui & 114.26 & 22.21 & 888 & 17 Oct. 2007 & 31 Dec. 2007 \\ Hong\_Kong\_PolyU & 114.18 & 22.30 & 4873 & 4 Nov. 2005 & 31 Dec. 2007 \\ Liangning & 122.70 & 41.51 & 1250 & 6 Apr. 2005 & 7 May 2005 \\ Lulin & 120.87 & 23.47 & 1869 & 5 Aug. 2006 & 31 Mar 2007 \\ NCU\_Taiwan & 121.19 & 24.97 & 1262 & 17 Jan. 2005 & 25 Oct. 2006 \\ Noto & 137.14 & 37.33 & 1717 & 11 June 2007 & 30 Nov. 2007 \\ Osaka & 135.59 & 34.65 & 7177 & 25 Mar. 2005 & 30 Dec. 2007 \\ PKU\_PEK & 116.18 & 39.59 & 420 & 14 Aug. 2006 & 10 Sep. 2006 \\ SACOL & 104.14 & 35.95 & 12,778 & 28 July 2006 & 31 Dec. 2007 \\ Shirahama & 135.36 & 33.69 & 15,567 & 1 Jan 2005 & 31 Dec. 2007 \\ Taihu & 120.22 & 31.42 & 8876 & 1 Sep. 2005 & 31 Dec. 2007 \\ Taipei\_CWB & 121.50 & 25.03 & 3955 & 3 Jan. 2005 & 27 Dec. 2007 \\ Ussurysk & 132.16 & 43.70 & 4793 & 2 Jan. 2005 & 29 Sep. 2007 \\ XiangHe & 116.96 & 39.75 & 19,407 & 2 Jan. 2005 & 31 Dec. 2007 \\ Xinglong & 117.58 & 40.40 & 4774 & 19 Feb. 2006 & 31 Dec. 2007 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 2: List of AERONET sites from which the four level 2.0 products were used to validate retrieval results. The number of data points denotes the number of AOD measurements from 2005 to 2007. The initial and final days indicate the measurement period.  
microphysical and optical properties are obtained from CALIOP measurements. The ratio of the perpendicular and parallel backscatter allows one to classify spherical and non-spherical particles of aerosols and clouds and the ratio between the signals at both wavelengths provides qualitative information of aerosol characteristics such as shape and the size distribution. In the present study, using the CALIPSO Lidar Level 2 aerosol profile data, the \(\text{Z}_{\text{aer}}\) was calculated from the backscattering extinction coefficient for 2007, coincident with the test period of the current algorithm. Figure 2 shows the grid-averaged \(\text{Z}_{\text{aer}}\) value with 1.5\({}^{\circ}\)\(\times\) 1.5\({}^{\circ}\) resolution, which was used as the a priori state of ALH in the developed algorithm. The pixel \(\text{Z}_{\text{aer}}\) was temporally and spatially collocated with OMI measurements and used to validate ALH results from the developed algorithm.