The column aerosol optical depth from satellite remote sensing was widely used for the comparison with ground-based observations of air pollution data, but there were influence on the correlation coefficients between them due to the lack of information about the aerosol vertical profile. The backscatter coefficients profiles from CALIOP sensor onboard CALIPSO satellite were used to determine the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) in Qingdao. It was found that the ABL was usually about 3 km in Qingdao. Then the aerosol optical depth with ABL less than 3 km in the CALIPSO lidar aerosol layer product were extracted to do correlation analysis with the ground-based observations of air pollution index (API) data in Qingdao. The result showed higher correlation coefficients compared with the column aerosol optical depth.