The contrasting roles of water and dust in controlling daily variations in  radiative heating of the summertime Saharan heat low

Marsham, John H.; Parker, Douglas J.; Todd, Martin C.; Banks, Jamie R.; Brindley, Helen E.; Garcia-Carreras, Luis; Roberts, Alexander J.; Ryder, Claire L.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-3563-2016

Articles | Volume 16, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-3563-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-3563-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 5

Research article

|

17 Mar 2016

Research article |

| 17 Mar 2016

The contrasting roles of water and dust in controlling daily variations in radiative heating of the summertime Saharan heat low

John H. Marsham, Douglas J. Parker, Martin C. Todd, Jamie R. Banks, Helen E. Brindley, Luis Garcia-Carreras, Alexander J. Roberts, and Claire L. Ryder

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Final revised paper (published on 17 Mar 2016)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 16 Jul 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC C6857: 'Review of "The contrasting roles of water and dust in controlling daily variations in radiative heating of the summertime Saharan Heat Low" by J. H. Marsham et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Sep 2015
- AC C12322: 'Reply to reviewer 1', John Marsham, 11 Feb 2016
RC C8250: 'Comment on "The contrasting roles of water and dust in controlling daily variations in rdiative heating of the summertime Saharan heat Low" by .H. Marsham et aL.', Anonymous Referee #2, 20 Oct 2015
- AC C12323: 'Reply to reviewer 2', John Marsham, 11 Feb 2016
RC C8553: 'Review', Amato Evan, 27 Oct 2015
- AC C12324: 'Reply to reviewer 3 (Amato Evan)', John Marsham, 11 Feb 2016

Peer-review completion

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

AR by John Marsham on behalf of the Authors (11 Feb 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (20 Feb 2016) by Yves Balkanski

AR by John Marsham on behalf of the Authors (03 Mar 2016)

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Short summary

The roles of water, clouds and airborne dust in controlling the heating of the Sahara are uncertain, which has major implications for the West African monsoon. Observations from the Fennec project, with satellite data, show that total atmospheric water content provides a far stronger control on total radiative heating than dust does, but dust provides the stronger control on surface heating. Therefore major heating errors in global models are likely due to known errors in water transport.