Marine boundary layer structure as observed by A-train satellites

Luo, Tao; Wang, Zhien; Zhang, Damao; Chen, Bing

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5891-2016

Articles | Volume 16, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5891-2016

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5891-2016

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

Articles | Volume 16, issue 9

Research article

|

13 May 2016

Research article |

| 13 May 2016

Marine boundary layer structure as observed by A-train satellites

Tao Luo, Zhien Wang, Damao Zhang, and Bing Chen

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Final revised paper (published on 13 May 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 03 Dec 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC C10455: 'Review of Luo et al. (2015)', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Dec 2015
- AC C13303: 'Response to Referee 1', TAO LUO, 25 Mar 2016
RC C10992: 'Reviewer's comments', Anonymous Referee #3, 31 Dec 2015
- AC C13304: 'Response to Referee 3', TAO LUO, 25 Mar 2016
RC C11045: 'Interactive comment on “Marine boundary layer structure as observed by space-based Lidar” by T. Luo et al', Anonymous Referee #2, 03 Jan 2016
- AC C13305: 'Response to Referee 2', TAO LUO, 25 Mar 2016

Peer-review completion

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

AR by TAO LUO on behalf of the Authors (25 Mar 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (01 Apr 2016) by Matthias Tesche

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (15 Apr 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review of Lou et al. “Marine boundary layer structure as observed by A-train satellites” revised from earlier draft. The manuscript is much improved and the quantitative analysis is appreciated. Please see the below comments.

Page 1, Line 16: Please clarify if these results are from the global or regional (E. Pacific) analysis
Page 6, lines 2-7: I’m a bit confused as to why an RMS difference in the U10m produces an RMS difference in the SST value. Is an estimate of U10m used to estimate SST by the AMSR-E algorithm?
Page 7, line 14: I believe the acronym for the high spectral resolution lidar is HSRL, not HRSL.
Page 7, lines 18-24: How many of the MAGIC transect soundings are cloud-free? If there was a high occurrence of clouds along the transect, such that most or all of the soundings sample cloudy conditions and the CALIPSO estimates are all cloud-free observations, the two data sets will sample different conditions.
Page 9, line 10: Remove the word “between”
Page 9, line 11: Here you state that these are small mean bias values, but biases of 60-120 m on a background value of 500 – 1500 m seems rather large. Also, it seems as though you are stating that a small bias when comparing MPL to radiosondes implies a small bias when comparing CALIPSO to radiosondes and this is not the case.
Page 9, line 20-21: You state that the CALIOP MBL structure appears differently from the radiosonde results. Could this be due to the CALIPSO observations not containing any stratiform clouds (because they are cloud-free)?
Page 10, lines 6-7: Can you comment on the large RMSE values (relative to the BLH value) and why you state there is good agreement with these large errors.
Page 12, lines 11-14: This is hard to see in the figures because the label blocks some of the figure and EIS>4 is cut off
Page 13, lines 1-6: Do you have an explanation for why the correlation changes sign at 135W?
Page 13, line 9: I believe 80 degrees, should be 80 degrees W
Page 14, lines 7-9: The strong error bars on Fig. 6a mean that you cannot clearly distinguish between EIS<0 and EIS>10 so you cannot claim EIS controls decoupling. You can only suggest that this could be part of the cause.
Page 14, lines 15-23: Why would weaker inversions measured by LTS imply less decoupling, but weaker inversions as measured by EIS imply more decoupling?
Page 15, line 15: Is this a 25 km AMSR-E footprint or a 0.25 degree footprint as stated on line 18?
Figure 6: You give the standard deviations for figures 6b and 6c, but they are not shown on the figure. Where did these numbers come from?

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RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (25 Apr 2016)

ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (25 Apr 2016) by Matthias Tesche

AR by TAO LUO on behalf of the Authors (28 Apr 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (03 May 2016) by Matthias Tesche

AR by TAO LUO on behalf of the Authors (04 May 2016)

Short summary

With a new 4-year satellite-based data set, the cloud-free marine boundary layer (MBL) structure characteristics over the eastern Pacific region were presented and analyzed together with the stratiform cloud top as the cloudy MBL top. Results showed that the behavior of MBL decouple structure and drizzling and non-drizzling stratiform cloud tops was mainly controlled by the inversion near the MBL top. Results in this paper will be valuable to evaluate and improve model simulation.