OMI tropospheric NO2 profiles from cloud slicing: constraints on surface emissions, convective transport and lightning NOx

Belmonte Rivas, M.; Veefkind, P.; Eskes, H.; Levelt, P.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-13519-2015

Articles | Volume 15, issue 23

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 13519–13553, 2015

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-13519-2015

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

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 13519–13553, 2015

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-13519-2015

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

Articles | Volume 15, issue 23

Research article 09 Dec 2015

Research article | 09 Dec 2015

OMI tropospheric NO₂ profiles from cloud slicing: constraints on surface emissions, convective transport and lightning NO_x

M. Belmonte Rivas et al.

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Final revised paper (published on 09 Dec 2015)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 17 Mar 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC C3384: 'Review of Belmont Rivas et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 09 Jun 2015
- AC C6447: 'Reply to Reviewer #2', M. Belmonte Rivas, 31 Aug 2015
RC C5621: '--', Anonymous Referee #3, 04 Aug 2015
- AC C6449: 'Reply to Reviewer #3', M. Belmonte Rivas, 31 Aug 2015

Peer-review completion

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

AR by M. Belmonte Rivas on behalf of the Authors (02 Sep 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (06 Sep 2015) by Michel Van Roozendael

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (18 Sep 2015)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

During discussion, I brought up only one major concern, which I however consider to be crucial:

"My main concern is that the study does not at all account for seasonality, while all involved
components (NOx emissions (heating, lightning, biomass burning), NOx lifetime,
convection patterns, NOx profiles, and cloud characteristics) can vary strongly over the
year. The value of an annual mean pseudoprofile is thus questionable, as the different
cloud pressure levels and the corresponding NO2 columns are not at all equally
distributed over the year.

Previous cloud slicing studies have considered seasonality (e.g. Liu et al. for CO and Choi
et al. for NO2), and I see no reason why this study does not. Thus, I recommend to
perform the cloud slicing on a seasonal basis. If statistics is too low for 3 months, the
seasons from several years can be merged. This requires major revisions, but will yield
better interpretable pseudoprofile and very likely strengthen the discussion of the model
comparison."

The authors refuse to deal with this concern, not for scientific reasons, but to limit the paper range.
I can understand this point, as the paper is indeed not short. But still, I am convinced that a seasonal analysis would strengthen the message of the study significantly
(a seasonal mean NOx profile makes sense, while an annual mean NOx profile derived from cloud slicing can actually entangle a summer profile at high altitudes (lightning, convection) with a winter profile at low altitudes), and I would definitely prefer a discussion of meaningfull (seasonal mean) pseudoprofiles over a discussion of something hard to assess (annual mean pseudoprofile).
I propose to focus the discussions and figures to one season in the paper and provide the other seasons in a supplement, which could help to limit the amount of extra work, as the overall structure of the paper would remain unchanged.

The revised manuscript does hardly mention the aspect of seasonality and does not discuss its impact at all.
I can not recommend publication in ACP before this is revised.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (23 Sep 2015)

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (23 Sep 2015) by Michel Van Roozendael

AR by M. Belmonte Rivas on behalf of the Authors (30 Oct 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (02 Nov 2015) by Michel Van Roozendael

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (12 Nov 2015)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (17 Nov 2015)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (20 Nov 2015) by Michel Van Roozendael

AR by M. Belmonte Rivas on behalf of the Authors (27 Nov 2015) Author's response Manuscript