Synergistic use of Lagrangian dispersion and radiative transfer  modelling with satellite and surface remote sensing measurements  for the investigation of volcanic plumes: the Mount Etna eruption  of 25–27 October 2013

Sellitto, Pasquale; di Sarra, Alcide; Corradini, Stefano; Boichu, Marie; Herbin, Hervé; Dubuisson, Philippe; Sèze, Geneviève; Meloni, Daniela; Monteleone, Francesco; Merucci, Luca; Rusalem, Justin; Salerno, Giuseppe; Briole, Pierre; Legras, Bernard

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-6841-2016

Articles | Volume 16, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-6841-2016

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

Special issue:

CHemistry and AeRosols Mediterranean EXperiments (ChArMEx)...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-6841-2016

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

Articles | Volume 16, issue 11

Research article

|

06 Jun 2016

Research article |

| 06 Jun 2016

Synergistic use of Lagrangian dispersion and radiative transfer modelling with satellite and surface remote sensing measurements for the investigation of volcanic plumes: the Mount Etna eruption of 25–27 October 2013

Pasquale Sellitto, Alcide di Sarra, Stefano Corradini, Marie Boichu, Hervé Herbin, Philippe Dubuisson, Geneviève Sèze, Daniela Meloni, Francesco Monteleone, Luca Merucci, Justin Rusalem, Giuseppe Salerno, Pierre Briole, and Bernard Legras

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Final revised paper (published on 06 Jun 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 09 Nov 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC C10543: 'Review of Sellito et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 17 Dec 2015
RC C10614: 'Review of manuscript acpd-15-31335 by Sellitto et al.', François Dulac, 18 Dec 2015
AC C12953: 'Reply to the Referees', Pasquale Sellitto, 02 Mar 2016

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Pasquale Sellitto on behalf of the Authors (02 Mar 2016) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (10 Mar 2016) by William Lahoz (deceased)

RR by François Dulac (13 Mar 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I find that authors did a good job in revising their ms and that it has been well improved. I think, however, that answer elements given in reply (i) to the anonymous referee comments 7 and 8, and (ii) to my review comments 2, 5 and 8, still need some clarifications in the ms itself. Regarding my own review comments:
-Comment 2: I do not see that section 2.2.1 (formerly 2.1.1) mentions any check between MODIS and IASI (or TES) SO2 products;
-Comment 5: there is a need to specify that the wind speed is assumed constant with time and altitude (p.15); an assessment of this rough approximation is possible by using ECMWF wind fields used with Flexpart and radio-sounding data at Trapani; it should be stated why more refinement is not necessary;
-Comment 8: I still do not understand the point and suggest to shorten the sentence from lines 23 to 26 in p.25, replacing “The radiative forcing per unit of AOD (or radiative forcing efficiency, RFE) is independent of the AOD, and its use is preferable with respect to the absolute radiative forcing in this context, due to the aforementioned uncertainty in the volcanic aerosol proportion in the column” by “The radiative forcing is normalized per unit of AOD, i.e. expressed in radiative forcing efficiency (RFE)”.

In addition, I have a few technical comments:
-Lines 18-20 p.11: if my review comment is the source for this size distribution information, it might be referred to.
-Figure 1: What do the M and Q (between the two boxes Source and Evolution) mean?
-Legends of Figure 2 and 3 are interchanged.
-Compared to the ACPD version, I think that 1 trajectory every 2 has probably been removed in Figure 3 following my review point No.12, and, as a consequence, I guess that the trajectories are no more hourly as still stated in the legend (check also corresponding text in p. 15).
-Figure 11: for better readability, it should be possible to expand the 2 plots horizontally, and in the case of Fig.11a to limit the vertical scale to 0.60 or 0.65.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (19 Apr 2016)

ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (20 Apr 2016) by William Lahoz (deceased)

AR by Pasquale Sellitto on behalf of the Authors (11 May 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (14 May 2016) by William Lahoz (deceased)

AR by Pasquale Sellitto on behalf of the Authors (18 May 2016) Manuscript

Short summary

We combine plume dispersion and radiative transfer modelling, and satellite and surface remote sensing observations to study the regional influence of a relatively weak volcanic eruption from Mount Etna (25–27 October 2013) on the optical/micro-physical properties of Mediterranean aerosols. Our results indicate that even relatively weak volcanic eruptions may produce an observable effect on the aerosol properties at the regional scale, with a significant impact on the regional radiative balance.