Lidar has been used extensively in the area of atmospheric aerosol measurement. Two unknowns at the reference altitude, the lidar ratio and the backscatter coefficient, need to be resolved from the lidar equation. In the actual application, these two values are difficult to obtain, particularly the backscatter coefficient.To better characterize the optical properties of aerosols, optical thickness, and attenuated backscatter obtained by other instruments are usually used as the input for joint inversion. However, this method is limited by location and time. In this study, the authors propose a new method for aerosol retrieval by using Mie scattering lidar data to solve this problem. The authors take the horizontal aerosol extinction coefficient as the constraint to begin the iteration until a self-consistent aerosol vertical profile was obtained. By comparing their results with Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) data, the authours determine that the aerosol extinction coefficient obtained by combining horizontal and vertical lidar observations is more precise than that obtained by using the traditional Fernald method. This new method has been adopted for retrieving the extinction coefficient of aerosols during the observation days.