The cloud-aerosol lidar with orthogonal polarization (CALIPSO) satellite data is an effective tool for measuring atmospheric aerosol properties, such as extinction coefficient, depolarization ratio and color ratio profiles. Comparing the aerosol properties during heavy haze, dust storm, biomass burning and clean period by using the CALIPSO satellite data, results show that the vertical distribution of aerosols for different polluted events differ greatly. For heavy haze event, aerosols are concentrated within 1 km above ground surface with high spherical degree and small size, often with temperature inversion and breezeless or weak wind. Comparatively, dust aerosols have wide vertical distribution, and can exist in upper atmosphere, with low spherical degree, non-uniform particle size and high wind speed. The aerosols of biomass burning event are mainly composed of small size particles and concentrated in the low and middle atmosphere, with high black carbon (BC) concentration and large extinction coefficient, which are often accompanied with polluted dust aerosols. According to the results, the CALIPSO satellite data can be used to characterize the category and the characteristic of the atmospheric aerosols.