Effects of aerosols on clear-sky solar radiation in the ALADIN-HIRLAM NWP  system

Gleeson, Emily; Toll, Velle; Nielsen, Kristian Pagh; Rontu, Laura; Mašek, Ján

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5933-2016

Articles | Volume 16, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5933-2016

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

Special issue:

Coupled chemistry–meteorology modelling: status and...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-5933-2016

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

Articles | Volume 16, issue 9

Research article

|

17 May 2016

Research article |

| 17 May 2016

Effects of aerosols on clear-sky solar radiation in the ALADIN-HIRLAM NWP system

Emily Gleeson, Velle Toll, Kristian Pagh Nielsen, Laura Rontu, and Ján Mašek

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Final revised paper (published on 17 May 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 19 Nov 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC C12013: 'Comments for the article 'Effects of Aerosols on Solar Radiation in the ALADIN-HIRLAM NWP System'', Anonymous Referee #1, 27 Jan 2016
- AC C13145: 'Responses to reviewer 1', E. Gleeson, 14 Mar 2016
RC C12129: 'Review of the manuscript acp-2015-749', Anonymous Referee #2, 01 Feb 2016
- AC C13147: 'Responses to reviewer 2', E. Gleeson, 14 Mar 2016

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Emily Gleeson on behalf of the Authors (14 Mar 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (01 Apr 2016) by Bernhard Vogel

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (13 Apr 2016)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (18 Apr 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This manuscript, submitted to Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, presents an interesting study of the sensitivity of the ALADIN-HIRLAM NWP system to the aerosol optical properties and the choice of the radiative scheme. The authors show the importance of considering realistic aerosols and their optical properties to simulate shortwave radiation. They have used a single-column NWP model to carry out simulation with different aerosol optical properties and radiative schemes. The dependence of the direct aerosol effect on relative humidity and aerosol vertical distribution has also been investigated.
This second version has been significantly improved : the structure of the paper is clearer, and easier to read, and the results are better exploited. The authors have considered all my comments and prepared detailed answers. As a consequence, I suggest the publication of this paper in ACP after the correction of the remaining minor comments.

Minor comments :
- Abstract : the use of the name of the radiation schemes could be a little abrupt for the reader. A very short description would be welcome.
- Abstract : please clarify « the shortwave heating rates in the boundary layer changed by up to a factor of 2 in response to the aerosol vertical distribution. »
- Page 3 Line 18 : Please clarify the « treatment of aerosols » when you mention the study of Palamarchuk et al. (2016).
- Page 4 Lines 13-27 : In this paragraph, the authors wanted to mention that « the vertical profile of aerosols is also very important when estimating their direct radiative effect ». However, most of the following references deal with the variability of aerosol heights instead of the effects of aerosol vertical profile on radiation.
- Page 6 : Please indicate the number of vertical levels you have used in your MUSC simulations.
- Section 3 : are there any observations of cloud cover, to bring evidence of the clear-sky conditions observed on 08 August 2010 ?
- Section 4.2 : how have you chosen the different values of h ? Have you considered the fact to change the exponential form of the profile ?
- Section 5.1 : is it possible to give the values of SSA ang g in parameterized IOPs ? It would be also better to show them in Figure 3 as it is done fore AOD in Figure 2.
- Page 15 Line 7 : could you comment on the differences observed in the IFS scheme ? As in hlradia, there is a strong discrepancy with observations in the morning.
- Page 16 Line 17 : « Due to forward … SWD irradiance ». I did not understand this statement, please clarify.
- Future work : do you consider also a similar work for all-sky fluxes ?

Technical comments :
- Page 3 line 6 : Tanré et al. (1984)
- Page 5 line 19 : Seity et al. (2011)
- Page 5 line 23 : Please update the horizontal and vertical resolutions of AROME at Météo-France, as it changed in April 2015.
- Page 6 line 1 : Malardel et al. (2006)
- Page 18 line 21 : the effects that (…) have on SW fluxes

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ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (25 Apr 2016) by Bernhard Vogel

AR by Emily Gleeson on behalf of the Authors (03 May 2016) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

The direct shortwave (SW) radiative effect of aerosols under clear-sky conditions in the ALADIN-HIRLAM numerical weather prediction system was investigated using three SW radiation schemes in diagnostic single-column experiments. Each scheme accurately simulates the direct SW effect when observed aerosols are used, particularly for heavy pollution scenarios.