Rubén Delgado¹, Raymond R. Rogers¹, Zhu Li¹, Nikisa S. Jordan¹, Kamonayi Mubenga¹, Kevin McCann¹ and Raymond M. Hoff¹

¹Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology/University of Maryland-Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA

Remote sensing of atmospheric aerosols and gases in the lower troposphere that affect the Earth’s radiative budget are carried out at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) by the Atmospheric Lidar Group. Observations of the impacts of natural (e. g. desert dust, sea salt, volcanic eruptions, and smoke from forest fires) sources are carried out with active and passive measurements to look at the regional variability and development of aerosols. Active measurements from the Elastic Lidar Facility (ELF) and the Atmospheric Lidar Experiment (ALEX) support the Regional East Atmospheric Lidar Mesonet (REALM), which monitors air quality in the vertical from multiple locations on the eastern coast of the United States, the North American Global Atmospheric Watch: Aerosol Lidar Observation Network (GALION), and CALIPSO/OMI instruments on the NASA’s A-Train. Passive measurements from NASA and NOAA satellites and EPA monitoring networks have been evaluated to determine their impact in the aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieval. Daily diary of air quality and measurements at UMBC are available at the United States Air Quality (USAQ) smog blog (http://alg.umbc.edu/usaq).