Spatial and temporal variability of clouds and precipitation over Germany: multiscale simulations across the "gray zone"

Barthlott, C.; Hoose, C.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-12361-2015

Articles | Volume 15, issue 21

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-12361-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

HD(CP)² Observational Prototype Experiment (AMT/ACP...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-12361-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 21

Research article

|

09 Nov 2015

Research article |

| 09 Nov 2015

Spatial and temporal variability of clouds and precipitation over Germany: multiscale simulations across the "gray zone"

C. Barthlott and C. Hoose

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Final revised paper (published on 09 Nov 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 24 Jun 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C5425: 'Review of “Spatial and temporal variability of clouds and precipitation over Germany: multiscale simulations across the gray zone” by Barthlott and Hoose', Anonymous Referee #1, 30 Jul 2015
- AC C5635: 'Response to reviewer comment', Christian Barthlott, 05 Aug 2015
RC C5852: 'Review of Spatial and temporal variability of clouds and precipitation over Germany: multiscale simulations across the “gray zone” by Barthlott and Hoose.', Anonymous Referee #2, 12 Aug 2015
AC C6921: 'Reply to all comments', Christian Barthlott, 16 Sep 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Christian Barthlott on behalf of the Authors (16 Sep 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (23 Sep 2015) by Herman Russchenberg

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (07 Oct 2015)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I feel that the authors have answered my concerns adequately. The addition of Figures 11 and 17 probably justifies keeping the word ‘clouds’ in the title. The qualitative nature of the paper (as also commented on by the other reviewer) remains, although there have been a few small improvements in this regard. Overall I think it is in a publishable state now, particularly since the authors state in the ‘response to reviewer comments’ that this paper presents the first non-idealised COSMO simulations in the literature at the 250-500m scale. If the authors are confident of this fact, I recommend mentioning it in the abstract.

Overall I can recommend to publish once the minor revision outlined below is addressed.

L324-331 This section isn’t particularly clear.

If I have understood correctly, I suggest changing this:

“The point where the individual spectra decrease stronger than the -5/3 slope determines the effective resolution of the model. It was found to be approximately between 6–7 times the horizontal grid spacing in the literature (e. g. Bryan et al., 2003; Skamarock, 2004; Petrik, 2012). Our simulations also show this characteristic behaviour as the region where the spectra differ from the -5/3 slope (marked by the gray shaded areas), lies between 6–7 x”.

to this:

“The point where the gradients (in log-space) of the individual spectra decrease below -5/3 determines the effective resolution of the model. Previous studies have suggested that this occurs at length-scales between 6 and 7 times the horizontal grid spacing (e. g. Bryan et al., 2003; Skamarock, 2004; Petrik, 2012). Our simulations show the same behaviour; the gradient of the spectra decreases below -5/3 between 6-7 x (marked by the gray shaded areas).”.

I didn’t follow the last part, so please revise:
“Another feature evident here is that the runs with 250m grid spacing posess an slightly weaker decrease before reaching the point of the effective resolution. This might be explained by shorter wavelengths aliases to longer wavelengths (Skamarock, 2004).”

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RR by Patric Seifert (24 Oct 2015)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (02 Nov 2015) by Herman Russchenberg

AR by Christian Barthlott on behalf of the Authors (03 Nov 2015) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

This paper assesses the resolution dependance of clouds and precipitation over Germany by numerical simulations with the COnsortium for Small-scale MOdeling model for 7 cases of 2013. By means of a series of grid-refinement resolution tests, the variability of clouds and precipitation and how this variability changes with model resolution are investigated. The performance of the model at these resolutions is of general relevance to the research community as well as to operational forecasters