Stratospheric aerosols affect both the global radiative budget and the ozone layer via heterogeneous reactions. Cooling caused by the volcanic injections can last for years, and pyrocumulonimbus-inducing wildfires are growing in frequency and intensity due to climate change. It is crucial that we understand the underlying mechanisms the result in the formation, growth, and loss of these particles to understand the stratospheric aerosol burden and how it will react to future perturbations. To that end, we must develop climate models and validate them with measurements. However, measuring aerosols in the stratosphere is challenging using traditional techniques. Continuous balloon-based measurements have been on-going since 1971, but they only provide a snapshot of the aerosol size distribution, and the majority of them are launched from mid-latitudes. Remote sensing methods, like the retrievals made based on measurements from the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite Limb Profiler (OMPS/LP), operate continuously and can circle the globe 14.5 times per day. The aerosol retrievals from this instrument have been developing rapidly in the past years, drawing on information from other remote sensor retrievals, global climate models, and balloon-based measurements to inform the aerosol model used to convert measured irradiance into aerosol size and number. In this work, we will compare the OMPS/LP V2 aerosol product with optical properties measured directly (extinction) and based on direct measurements of aerosol size distributions in the stratosphere. These measurements were made as a part of the NOAA Stratospheric Aerosol processes, Budget and Radiative Effects (SABRE) mission. We measured the aerosol size distribution for particles from 0.03 to 1.5 um in diameter using the Aerosol Microphysical Properties (AMP) suite. AMP was deployed on the NASA WB-57F which performed 21 sorties as far north as 81°N, sampling altitudes between 10 – 18 km, a historically under sampled part of the stratosphere.