Cirrus cloud has an important influence on the radiative balance in earth-atmosphere system, and cirrus cloud lidar ratio is helpful to understand the optical property of cirrus cloud. The retrieval methods of cirrus cloud effective lidar ratio are introduced, the features and application range of these methods are analyzed, and the reasons of selecting these methods are provided. System errors and random errors of these methods are estimated by case study. The results indicate that these retrieval methods are consistent and effective.