Abstract: In view of the development of aerosol lidar network in megacities in China, the calibration methods and quantitative methods of aerosol lidar network are continuously studied and solved by referring
to the calibration strategy of the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET). In September
2021, a self-calibration/intercomparison and quantification study was carried out for six 532 nm
polarization lidars developed by different units at the Southern Suburb Observatory of Beijing. After selfcalibration
of the key performance of the lidars, such as optical geometry calibration, dark noise, Rayleigh
fit and effective detection range, the intercomparison observations with the reference lidar were carried out,
and the quality evaluation of polarization performance of the lidars to be calibrated was carried out by
using the strategy of statistical analysis of system deviation and standard deviation. The results show that
the averaged relative deviation of horizontal polarization signal P of 532 nm lidars after self-calibration can
be controlled within 10% in the height range of 0.5 – 2 km, and within 20% in the height range of 2 –
5 km. While the original signal of vertical polarization S shows a big difference of over 50%. After being
transferred to the backscattering coefficient, the mean relative deviation and standard deviation can be
controlled within 10% in the height range of 0.5–2 km, and within 20% in the height range of 2–5 km. The
method of self calibration and intercomparison with the reference lidar is helpful to quantitatively evaluate
the observation performance of 532 nm polarization lidar in China, and also can be used as a routine
quality control method to improve the consistency of the signal products of atmospheric lidar network and
the accuracy of the retrieval products, laying the foundation for atmospheric aerosol lidar to enter the
quantitative network observation.

Key words: polarization lidar, aerosol, networking calibration, intercomparisons