Date and time: March 11th, 2026 at 16:00 (CET)
Light detection and ranging (lidar) instruments are a powerful tool to measure the vertical profile ofaerosol layers in the atmosphere. Observations are available from ground-based lidars, organized inlidar networks; from airborne platforms during dedicated campaigns and from spaceborne lidarsensors delivering global observations. Mineral dust can be clearly distinguished from other aerosoltypes by its enhanced depolarization ratio. In that way, lidar observations can be used to study dustlayers in the atmosphere in the source regions, during transport and removal. Dedicated algorithmsallow to estimate the fine and coarse mode contribution in atmospheric dust layers and to estimate theconcentration of ice nucleating particles (INP) in the dust, a property of high relevance for aerosol-cloud interaction studies. The presentation will introduce the description of Saharan dust and its long-range transport from lidar observations and differences to Asian dust sources. Furthermore, the potential of the new EarthCARE satellite (launched May 2024) will be introduced and auxiliary laboratory investigations on the dust optical properties will be presented.