This page provides links to web pages of available measurements of optical and chemical properties of aerosol, as well as ancillary data (meteorology, clouds, etc). Most of these web sites are user friendly, and I thank the developers for the hard work making these datasets available through a user friendly interface. Most of the following links contain also graphical tools which allow to make very decent plots.
OPTICAL PROPERTIES:
GROUND_BASED:
SUNPHOTOMETER:
AERONET: Global network of sunphotometers
Synergy AERONET/SATELLITE
http://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/bamgomas_interactive
NEPHELOMETER:
NOAA ESRL: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aero/net/index.html
SATELLITE:
US INSTRUMENTS: http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.shtml
FR INSTRUMENTS: ICARE: http://www.icare.univ-lille1.fr/
MODIS: Level 1, 2 and 3 on Terra and Aqua platforms
MISR: Level1, 2 and 3
CALIPSO: http://www.icare.univ-lille1.fr/
DISCVR-EPIC: https://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/products/uv
GIOVANNI SYNERGY TOOL: http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/giovanni/
FIRE COUNTS:
MODIS: http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/
LIDAR DATA:
Satellite: CALIPSO image browser:
http://www.icare.univ-lille1.fr/calipso/browse/
Ground based:
Global: MPLNET: http://mplnet.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Asia: AsiaNet: http://www-lidar.nies.go.jp/
EU: EARLINET: http://www.earlinet.org/
SURFACE CONCENTRATION AND CHEMICAL DATA:
FIELD CAMPAIGNS: NOAA PMEL: http://saga.pmel.noaa.gov/data/
FIELD CAMPAIGNS: NASA: https://espoarchive.nasa.gov/archive/browse
US: IMPROVE: http://vista.cira.colostate.edu/improve/
EU: EMEP: http://ebas.nilu.no/Default.aspx
CLOUDS: CLOUDSAT Level 1, 2 and 3
METEOROLOGICAL FIELDS
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.html