This manuscript presents the meaningful demonstration of the capabilities of ALADIN in retrieving aerosol optical properties, specifically the backscatter coefficient, extinction coefficient, and lidar ratio. The dust layers’ lidar ratios used for CALIOP is also revised according the simultaneous measurements of ALADIN. The manuscript is well written and its contents are of high quality and scientific interest. The benefits of this study would be great for the accurate estimation of Aeolus and CALIOP aerosol data products. Hence, I recommend the acceptance of this manuscript after the necessary revisions.

The specific comments are listed below:

1. My main concern about the extinction coefficient/backscatter coefficient comparisons between CALIOP (at 532nm) and ALADIN (at 355nm) is their wavelength dependence. In this manuscript, the authors compare the aerosol products directly without any wavelength convert, even you mentioned it in line 244.
2. Line 66: could you please give some more detailed comments on why the extinction coefficient is not affected by the misdetection of the cross-polar component?
3. Line 104-105: The authors should be aware that the horizontal resolution for Rayleigh channel and Mie channel is different.
4. Line 120: Have the authors ever try to estimate the performance of the products from MLE? You mentioned the MLE method has positive effect on the products retrieve, however, why the Level-2 SCAmb products are applied in your study?
5. Figure 1: why the temporal disparity of 9 hours and the maximum spatial difference of 200km are set as thresholds? Is there any physical basis for these selections? For example, wind direction? Air mass transport?
6. The color bar in Figure 1 somehow misleads me. I suggest the authors may use the color bar oppositely, be like Figure 2.
7. Line 244: the spectral difference between 532 nm and 355 nm could be corrected somehow with the use of typical Angstrom exponent of dust. Have you ever tried to do this work?
8. Line 312: what is the time difference between the measurements from MODIS and CALIOP?
9. The wavelength band that MODIS applied should be pointed out. Hence, we can figure it out whether the wavelength convert should be carried out. From this point of view, the underestimation may be solved.

The technical corrections:

1. Line 193: “the blue dots in (d) represent the footprint…” should be changed to “the blue dots in (d) represent the footprints…”
2. Please provide the color bars’ label for the green/blue gradients in Figure 4 and 5.
3. Why there is only one red profile in Figure 4(a) and 5(a) between 12.5 km and 17.5 km? Is it because there is only one measurement case reach that height? Then I would suggest the authors provide the total numbers of measurements at different heights.
4. It should be “Comparison of aerosol extinction coefficients…” instead of “Comparison of aerosol backscatter coefficients” in the caption of Figure 5. Please correct it.

The authors present the combination of CALIOP and ALADIN measurements of a dust plume over the Atlantic ocean. They show that ALADIN measurements align well with CALIOP observations as long as proper data filtering as applied. They also re-iterate known limitations of the analysis of CALIOP observations of mineral dust by using ALADIN measurements of the dust lidar ratio to show that the dust lidar ratio in the CALIOP data retrieval is still set too low. The paper would benefit from re-organisation and shortening. Hence, minor revisions are needed:

• I suggest to organise the work in a more conventional way with fewer sections. Please put methods and results into the corresponding sections rather then mixing them up as in the case study. The introduction is also bit lengthy and could be sharpened towards what's relevant for the presented work.
• The text includes plenty of figure descriptions that should be covered solely in the figure captions (e.g. lines 193-196, 233-234, 270-275, 306-309, 3043-346). Please omit from the main text.
• Please unify the colour axes in Figs. 1 and 2. The inversion is not very intuitive. Figure 2 might be expanded by a panel that shows all latitudes.
• Why are the authors discussion cloud masks that are not being used for this work? I suggest to stick to what has been used (the MSG-SEVIRI dust mask) and to provide a statement that other cloud masks have either not yet been available or less useful for your purpose. Figure 3 would need to be revised accordingly.
• Figures 4, 5, and 10 could be improved by adding the number of profiles that contribute at the different height bins. Also, colour scales for the gradients in Figs. 4 and 5 are missing.
• The discussion of Figure 4 - particularly of the particle depolarisation ratio - would benefit from comparisons to findings of SAMUM-2 at Cape Verde.
• line 251: shouldn't it be feature type identification?
• I suggest to add lidar curtain plots to Figs. 6 and 7 as those would clearly demonstrate the effect of signal attenuation. It would also be nice if the comparison of extinction coefficients had some quantitative element, such as a correlation plot.
• I don't think that Figure 8 is needed.
• It is not clear to my what the investigation related to Fig. 11 and Tab. 2 is supposed to tell the readers. Okay, the mean profile shape is different for cases with AOD below or above an arbitrary threshold. But can this be used somehow? If anything, I would expect that type (b) with the higher extinction peak would correspond to the attenuated lower AOD profiles - but it doesn't. This part of the paper left me puzzled and I suggest to omit it.
• I don't think that Section 7 provides any information about the vertical transport of dust aerosol. Fig. 12 is certainly a nice plot that combines the observations of the two platforms. However, it would me more informative if it was to provide information on the longitudinal and height distribution as well. It seems to me that a similar plot could already be produced using much more data from MODIS observations.

Review report for amt-2023-2252

The paper "Characterisation of dust aerosols from ALADIN and CALIOP measurements'' aims to assess the performance of ALADIN by comparing with CALIOP, and uses the synergy of both sensors to improve and increase information over an extreme dust transport episode. The manuscript falls within the scope of the journal. However, the presentation and discussion of the paper is not clear and the submitted study is subject to deficiencies. I would recommend publishing considering the major revisions and addressing the specific comments that follow. Furthermore, the text needs rearrangements, especially in terms of the structure in the presentation of the methodology, figures, and discussion in specific sub-sections (see comments below). 

Major comments:

1. I don’t see any direct evidence presented by the authors that supports the statement that “ALADIN is more susceptible to signal attenuation from CALIOP”. I suggest removing that statement from the abstract and elsewhere.
2. The authors state that their work paves the way for forthcoming spaceborne HSRL missions, particularly the ESA ATLID space lidar (set for a 2024 launch) and Aeolus-2. How does this paper do that?
3. In abstract and elsewhere, please mention the limitation of ALADIN/Aeolus on retrieving the total particle backscatter coefficient, otherwise the reader will get into confusion (for example, while the term “co-polar backscatter” is not a perfectly valid one, it could be used to distinguish from total backscatter).
4. QC flags: The paper extensively utilizes CALIOP and ALADIN, however pre-processing and Quality-Assurance criteria applied on the data used for the comparisons of backscatter and extinction coefficients are not sufficiently presented nor discussed. 
5. Spectral conversions: Furthermore, assumptions on 532-355 nm spectral dependencies on depolarization, lidar ratio, extinction and backscatter should be supported (preferably using as reference the paper of Floutsi et al., (2023) where averages for these properties using long-term ground-based lidar measurements are given). 
6. For 4 & 5 (aforementioned comments) to be tackled, I would suggest that the authors extensively elaborate on the datasets and methodology sections, to clearly present the processing chains and assumptions leading to the study conclusions.
7. Collocation: Section 2.3 “Collocation of Aeolus and CALIPSO”: The paper presents and discusses the following collocation criteria: (1) “3◦×3◦ grid, sets the maximum temporal disparity at 9 hours and the maximum spatial difference at 200 km”, (2) “a spatial distance under 1◦ and a temporal discrepancy not exceeding 24 hours, based on data between 30th June 2019 and 28th September 2021”, and (3) “between 30◦ N and 30◦ S, most collocated observations are within 4 hours and 100 km”. It is not clear at all the selected collocation criteria that are applied in the framework of the study. More important is the authors to discuss atmospheric homogeneity in terms of aerosols and clouds. How is it ensured that the two satellite sensors probe the same air masses? For example, the authors could provide a study on spatiotemporal representativeness in terms of the selected and applied criteria including literature - discussion on NA meteorology. Ensuring that the two systems probe the same air masses is fundamental for the follow-up intercomparison, non assessing it makes the outcome conclusions questionable. 
8. Cloud contamination: The dust transport event examined was extreme, however the extensive presence of clouds may affect the scenes examined. Here, with respect to Aeolus Cloud Filtering, three methods are presented and discussed, the (1)  SEVIRI CLM cloud mask, (2) the CM SAF cloud mask, and (3) AEL-FM. However, it is not clear which - if not all of the aforementioned cloud-screening datasets are applied. Please elaborate on this aspect, including discussion of the quality of the applied procedures, assumptions, and uncertainties. With respect to CALIOP, which cloud filtering criteria are applied?
9. In the conclusions section, the authors draw generic conclusions on Aeolus and CALIPSO, however their work is based on a single event, which is an extreme one, over a specific domain, and for a time period not exceeding a few weeks. Thus, the outcomes should not be treated as generic since the statistical study lacks the depth to support the argument.

Specific Comments:

1. A CALIPSO-based mean depolarization ratio profile is provided, reporting also mean particulate depolarization of 0.32. However, this depolarization is accompanied by a standard deviation ~ ±0.15 which translates to non-pure dust layers apparent in the atmosphere, resulting in particle depolarization values lower than 0.3. How do the authors treat those layers? Treating them as pure-dust layers and applying dust-related conversion factors contaminate the outcomes, so the authors have to address the aerosol mixtures accordingly. Moreover, please mention the pre-processing chains in terms of particle depolarization ratio profiles leading to the non-noisy profile in Fig.4. How do the authors treat larger than 1 and lower than 0 CALIPSO V4 L2 5km depolarization values?
2. You can modify Figures 4a, 4b, 5b, and, 5d, to linear instead of logarithmic x-axis scales, add a colorbar for the gradient values, and a second axis reporting on the sample size of profiles resulting in the mean profiles.
3. Results presented in Figures 4a, 4b, 5b, and, 5d: you may provide statistical metrics reporting on the intercomparison of backscatter and extinction coefficient profiles (e.g., σ, r2, mean/relative biases, …). Prior to doing this analysis the authors should elaborate how they get CALIPSO to the same horizontal and vertical resolution to Aeolus. 
4. You can apply linear scales also to figures 6(b,c,e,f )and 7(b,c,e,f).
5. Line 198 and Figure 3: According to the authors the method of Ashpole and Washington (2012) is applied. Since this is a crucial section, please provide discussion on the method, assumption, performance, and uncertainties. Since CALIPSO is used, which is the reason for not implementing CALIPSO aerosol subtype classification as dust identified aerosol layers?
6. Lines 242-248: This sentence actually is generic to a degree that it doesn’t provide any information, since none of the aforementioned source of discrepancies is assessed and no effort in quantifying the effect of each factor is provided in the manuscript. Please elaborate more on this. 
7. Please describe clearly in Section 6 how you apply corrections to CALIPSO and provide the formulas.
8. Please take care of the units in the manuscript, in some places they are missing.

Editorial corrections:

1. Lines 12-13: Provide the wavelength
2. Lines 59-75: Here additional references on the technical documents from ESA and the published papers could be used to support the technical description on the operation principle of ALADIN and the retrieval of the aerosol products, as already listed in related studies using ALADIN/Aeolus aerosol data.
3. Line 120: The version of the SCA algorithm (e.g. Baseline XX) used for retrieving the ALADIN profiles that are presented in the study could be mentioned here.
4. Lines 210-223: For the conversion between the total backscatter coefficient and the backscatter coefficient that ALADIN measures (co-polar backscatter) Paschou et al., AMT, 2022 could be also cited here, since it provides an extended discussion on the physical background along with the equations for converting the backscatter coefficient and the lidar ratio.
5. Lines 234-236: The ALADIN backscatter is depicted in Fig.4 (b) while the CALIOP backscatter in Fig.4 (a). Please correct the typos.
6. Lines 237-238: How much is the standard deviation of the mean value of particle linear depolarization ratio at 532 nm that is used (δlinear, 532part=0.32) for correcting the ALADIN backscatter coefficient from the missing cross-polar backscattered signal? 
7. Line 237: It would be nice if “particle” could be used to define the type of depolarization ratio that is discussed. Here most probably is the particle depolarization ratio. Please elaborate through the manuscript. 
8. Figure 5: Do you mean “Comparison of the extinction coefficients between CALIOP and ALADIN etc ”?
9. Lines 275-276: “Collocated CALIOP retrievals are upscaled from a resolution of 0.03 km to match this resolution." => 0.06 km in CALIPSO L2/L3.
10. Line 287: The authors mention that the case of 19th June 2020 is characterized by high AOD values. How high are the AOD values for this case, and from which source did they have been obtained?
11. Lines 313-315: It is not clear if the CALIOP corrected AOD (i.e. after exclusion of the fully attenuated bins) or the CALIOP AOD is used in the comparison. Please be more specific.
12. Figure 9: “The CALIOP AODs have excluded profiles containing fully attenuated bins at any altitudes”. Here it is not clear if the authors refer to the AOD values calculated from the CALIOP corrected data. Please make the description more specific. For example you could change to “The CALIOP AODs (red) are calculated using all the available profiles and the CALIOP corrected AODs (green) are calculated after excluding profiles containing fully attenuated bins at any altitudes” or similar.
13. Line 319: Regarding the dust lidar ratio variability you can also refer to the latest work of Floutsi et al., AMT, 2023.
14. Line 328: According to figure 10, the presented ALADIN LR has been corrected for the missing cross-polar backscattered signals. However, the reported LR value (63.5 sr; how much is its standard deviation?) is very high, when ground-based measurements at 355 nm show a variability of 53 ± 7 sr (Floutsi et al., AMT, 2023), so the value is on the upper limit of the distribution.
15. Lines 329-331 and Table 1: The authors could also refer to the recent work of Floutsi et al., AMT, 2023 where an extended data collection of aerosol-type-dependent optical properties are presented from a large number of archived observations and experimental campaigns.
16. Lines 337 – 342: Only now, after Fig. 10 and its discussion, it is explained by the authors what the “corrected CALIOP” represents in Fig. 9. Moreover, Fig. 9 is further discussed after the first discussion that took place in lines 311–315. This structure is very confusing, so it would be good if you could re-organize the text in order to discuss the figure outcomes just before or after you first introduce the figure and also to explain how new products/parameters that are depicted in the figure are obtained.
17. Line 340: What do the authors mean with a “subset of CALIOP AOD” and where do they refer to (e.g. to “CALIOP corrected” AOD)? 
18. Lines 343 – 358: In Fig. 11, the authors are using the CALIOP extinction profiles after correction with the correction factor for lidar ratio (LR_ALADIN/LR_CALIOP), in which the fully attenuated bins are filtered out. Then they group the extinction profiles based on the total AOD from CALIOP (AOD < 1.8 and AOD > 1.8). It is not clear the reason for selecting a threshold of 1.8 AOD and not some other threshold. Moreover, why do the authors state that for the group of extinction profiles with AOD < 1.8 the strongly attenuated bins are included in the profiles, but on the other hand, for the group of extinction profiles with AOD > 1.8 the strongly attenuated bins are properly excluded?
19. Line 354: The filtering strategy is the exclusion of the fully attenuated bins from the CALIOP observations? Please be more specific here.

The paper of Song et al exploits the aerosol spin-off products for the European wind lidar mission Aeolus for a specific extreme event, namely a heavy Sharan dust outbreak observed over the Atlantic. To compensate the drawbacks of the wind lidar Aladin in the vicinity of non-spherical particles, the authors use the polarization observations from NASA CALIPSO mission to correct Aeolus‘ co-polar backscatter coefficient and SEVIRI dust mask as a cloud screening proxy.

The paper is of interest for the scientific community, exploits the synergy between different space-born profiles and describes an intense extreme event in a changing climate based on vertically resolved optical properties. It furthermore shows, how different sensors could be used in a synergistic way to retrieve optimized aerosol profiles. It is this worth publishing, however, only after addressing the issues listed below.

Major/General comments:

• Most of the comparisons, especially of extinction coefficient are plotted on logarithmic scale in separated plots. However, by doing so, it is not possible to see major differences in case of strong backscatter and extinction as it is the case for in this paper. Thus, comparisons should be shown in linear scale an, maybe divided by low and high values, to allow the reader to see, how well the results agree. Best, also in the same Figure. Later you state, that „Assessing the accuracy of ALADIN’s aerosol retrievals within the upper atmospheric region exceeding the dust layer is beyond the scope of this work.“ Thus, there is no need to use a log scale.
  
  At least, I cannot follow many conclusions you have drawn based on the log-based figures you provided.
• In my opinion, the first part of the section 4, case study is a methodological part and should be put in a respective section. This section should be expanded with respect to CALIPSO observation which have been used: E.g., the quality controls are not clearly described. I can't figure out which CALIOP cloud screening is applied.
• Furthermore, have you used mean Calipso depol profiles for correction or did you make a case by case correction? It is not clearly stated.
• In Section 6, important information is missing, e.g. on how the columnar AOD is calculated from Calipso profiles which obviously are not available down to the ground. Currently, the section is really misleading.
• As the authors focus on a specific atmospheric scene at a specific time of the Aeolus mission, conclusions drawn should not be too general.

Specific comments:

• 1: Please invert color scale, in all other plots of this color map high values are dark and low ones light.
• Fig. 4b: Please use a different color for the mean, hardly seen. And please use contours instead of gradients as wording.
• Please explain all abbreviations (e.g. HSRL) and reference if appropriate (e.g. for A-Train).
• Lines 104-105: "corresponding to an along-track horizontal resolution of approximately 87 km". Here it should be mentioned that this nominal along-track horizontal resolution of ~87km corresponds to one Basic Repeat Cycle (BRC) also referred as Observation, and pointing to the L2A Algorithm Technical Basis Document (ATBD).
• Line 105: "Each observation is comprised of 24 vertical bins". This is only valid for SCA, the SCAmb used within the study being aligned with only 23 vertical range-bin.
• Line 121 "Level-2 SCAmb products are used" and line 183 "the ALADIN L2A data from the study period". Here the L2A baseline reference (i.e. 2AXX) should be clearly mentioned as the exact date of downloading from the ESA ADDF.
• Line 174: "official L2A Aeolus processor". The term official could be replaced by operational.
• Line 235, „For the sake of comparison, the ALADIN aerosol retrievals 235 in Fig. 4 (a) have been converted from co-polar to total backscatter coefficients, aligning them with the CALIOP aerosol retrievals in Fig. 4 (b).“I think you mixed up here something. Please check!
• Lines 237- 239: Did you use the mean depol value of Calipso or each single profile? At least stating that the depol ratio remains constant with a mean value of 0.32 is quite confusing.
• Fig. 5. Caption wrong, its extinction not backscatter
• Line 264 "CALIOP’s extinction retrieval relies on a predefined lidar ratio tailored for specific aerosol types". Here it might be interesting to point the lidar ratio value assigned to the tropospheric aerosol class highlighted in Figure 8.
• 280: „For Fig. 6(b), both measurements show an extinction of ∼15 km−1, except where ALADIN observations fail quality-control.“ How can I see that they fail quality control? Are these the non-existent data points? This is not clear. Please describe better and also which quality control was applied.
• Fig. 6 and 7: Could you also plot the evolution of the Aeolus lidar ratio (after correction).
• Line 293: "This example illuminates a common problem with ALADIN extinction retrieval: retrievals at the base of a thick aerosol layer are very likely to be significantly underestimated or excluded" by quality control due to low SNRs. What does this statement refer to ? Which test cases or analysis have been used to qualify it as a common issue ?
• 297: „A noteworthy observation is that ALADIN persistently records an extinction coefficient higher by ∼2 compared to CALIOP“ I do not see that in you plots.
• Figure 9. Why do you not provide the Aeolus AOD as well?
• Fig. 10. Please clearly indicate the wavelength in the plot (355 for Aeolus, 532 nm for CALIOP)
• 335: “This scaling method is an approximation, as a different lidar ratio can alter the lidar profile and subsequently affect the retrieval process.” Please describe a bit more. I guess you mean the lidar ratio choice already influences the backscatter retrieval during the Klett inversion?
• Table 1.: I recommend to check the values and complete it with the recent publication of Floutsi et al. (DeLiAn).
• Line: 343ff: According to Figure 11, there are no extinction profiles below ca. 1.8 km. Thus I was wondering how did you calculate the total AOD from Calipso? Did you interpolate? Did you just skip the lowermost altitudes? Please clearly describe.
• Line 335: “The grouped extinction profile indicate a mean layer AOD 355 of 0.413 between the 0 and 2.4 km layer, accompanied by a considerable standard deviation due to the random distribution of strongly attenuated bins along the satellite track. Conversely, the alternative set of measurements devoid of strongly attenuated bins demonstrates a layer AOD of 1.015 between 0 and 2.4 km.” I do not understand this statement at all, please rephrase and describe more!
• Conclusion: Please highlight a bit more the synergistic use of Calipso and Aeolus and Seviri for optimum aerosol profiles in this specific dust case.

Language:

Line 34: „Spaceborne lidars have the advantage of minimal aerosol loading between the instrument and the calibration region.“ .. I know what you mean with that, but a non-expert user will not understand what is mean there. Please rephrase.

- Lines 109-110: "Standard Correction Algorithm (SCA)" and "Standard Correction Algorithm middle bin (SCAmb)" should be replaced by "Standard Correct Algorithm (SCA)" and "Standard Correct Algorithm middle bin (SCAmb)"

References:

Floutsi, A. A., Baars, H., Engelmann, R., Althausen, D., Ansmann, A., Bohlmann, S., Heese, B., Hofer, J., Kanitz, T., Haarig, M., Ohneiser, K., Radenz, M., Seifert, P., Skupin, A., Yin, Z., Abdullaev, S. F., Komppula, M., Filioglou, M., Giannakaki, E., Stachlewska, I. S., Janicka, L., Bortoli, D., Marinou, E., Amiridis, V., Gialitaki, A., Mamouri, R.-E., Barja, B., and Wandinger, U.: DeLiAn – a growing collection of depolarization ratio, lidar ratio and Ångström exponent for different aerosol types and mixtures from ground-based lidar observations, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 2353–2379, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2353-2023, 2023.