Aerosol plays an important role in atmospheric optics, atmospheric radiation, atmospheric chemistry, atmospheric pollution and cloud microphysics, which has been an important factor of atmospheric monitoring. To better study temporal and spatial variation of optical characteristics of atmospheric aerosol, a scanning aerosol lidar employing a pulsed laser with single laser energy of 60 μJ at 532 nm was developed by Institute of Oceanographic Instrumentation, Qilu University of Technology,Shandong Academy of Sciences. The structure, technical parameters, detection principle and modes were introduced; some experiments were performed and analyzed. Through the measurements in Wheat Island marine environment monitoring station, the horizontal visibility under different weather conditions was analyzed. It was proved that the developed lidar can provide detection modes of time height indication(THI), range height indication(RHI) and plane position indication(PPI). The temporal and spatial variation of aerosol and cloud properties were analyzed through the data of different detection modes and extinction coefficient of aerosol in different moments retrieved by the Fernald method. The observational results show that the lidar can effectively acquire horizontal visibility, the distribution of aerosol in different directions, the temporal and spatial variation of aerosol, cloud and the structure of boundary layer.