The Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) Tropospheric Aerosol Radiative Forcing Observational Experiment (TARFOX) data set was collected over the Western Atlantic Ocean in July 1996. The overall goal of TARFOX was to reduce uncertainties in the effects of aerosols on climate by determining the direct radiative impacts, as well as the chemical, physical, and optical properties, of the aerosols carried over the western Atlantic Ocean from the United States. LASE is an airborne autonomous DIAL system which produces measurements of aerosols and water vapor vertical profiles from the aircraft altitude down to the surface. Such profiles show the vertical context in which the TARFOX in situ and radiometric measurements are made, thus supporting the vertical extension of the in situ measurements and detecting any unsampled layers or inhomogeneities, which would impact the airborne and satellite radiative flux measurements. Note that the LASE_TARFOX data set is also available under the TARFOX project as the TARFOX_LASE data set. The data files included in these two data sets are identical.