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Ozone lidars measure continuous, high-resolution ozone profiles critical for process studies and for satellite validation in the lower troposphere. However, the effectiveness of lidar validation by using single-station data is limited. Recently, NASA initiated an interagency ozone lidar observation network under the name TOLNet to promote cooperative multiple-station ozone-lidar observations to provide highly timeresolved (few minutes) tropospheric-ozone vertical profiles useful for air-quality studies, model evaluation, and satellite validation. This article briefly describes the concept, stations, major specifications of the TOLNet instruments, and data archiving.

A tropospheric ozone Differential Absorption Lidar system, developed jointly by The University of Alabama in Huntsville and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is making regular observations of ozone vertical distributions between 1 and 8 km with two receivers under both daytime and nighttime conditions using lasers at 285 and 291 nm. This paper describes the lidar system and analysis technique with some measurement examples. An iterative aerosol correction procedure reduces the retrieval error arising from differential aerosol backscatter in the lower troposphere. Lidar observations with coincident ozonesonde flights demonstrate that the retrieval accuracy ranges from better than 10% below 4 km to better than 20% below 8 km with 750-m vertical resolution and 10-min temporal integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]