Changes in domestic heating fuel use in Greece: effects on atmospheric chemistry and radiation

Athanasopoulou, Eleni; Speyer, Orestis; Brunner, Dominik; Vogel, Heike; Vogel, Bernhard; Mihalopoulos, Nikolaos; Gerasopoulos, Evangelos

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-10597-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 17

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-10597-2017

© Author(s) 2017. 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-17-10597-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 17

Research article

|

08 Sep 2017

Research article |

| 08 Sep 2017

Changes in domestic heating fuel use in Greece: effects on atmospheric chemistry and radiation

Eleni Athanasopoulou, Orestis Speyer, Dominik Brunner, Heike Vogel, Bernhard Vogel, Nikolaos Mihalopoulos, and Evangelos Gerasopoulos

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Final revised paper (published on 08 Sep 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 15 Mar 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Referee comment on "Changes in the domestic heating fuel in Greece: effects on atmospheric chemistry and radiation"', Anonymous Referee #2, 12 Apr 2017
- AC1: 'Reply to RC1 (Anonymus Referree #2)', Eleni Athanasopoulou, 27 Jun 2017
RC2: 'Review of ACP 2017-139', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 May 2017
- AC2: 'Reply to RC2 (Anonymus Referree #1)', Eleni Athanasopoulou, 27 Jun 2017

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Eleni Athanasopoulou on behalf of the Authors (27 Jun 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (28 Jun 2017) by Alexander Baklanov

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (16 Jul 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The manuscript has been improved and almost all the parts that needed a revision have been modified/integrated following the reviewers’ comments and answering their questions.

The inclusion of a discussion concerning the feedback on atmospheric composition completed the work considering the general focus on coupled atmospheric modelling.

The manuscript can be published after the minor revision required to clarify few items highlighted by the following detailed comments.

Detailed comments

The Authors should consider to include in their discussion (either in section 2.3 or in the conclusions section) the possible improvement that could be obtained from an high resolution local emission inventory. Previous studies (e.g. Denier van der Gon et al., 2011) showed that the use of continental scale emission inventories for city scale modelling can be quite crude for large European cities.

Denier van der Gon et al., 2011, Discrepancies between top-down and bottom-up emission inventories of megacities: the causes and relevance for modeling concentrations and exposure, Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXI, 199-204, Springer, Dordrecht

2.2 Model framework and setup

Page 5
Line 13
Does “uniform (in space) and constant (in time) initial conditions” mean “uniform (in space) initial and boundary conditions and constant (in time) boundary conditions”?
The detail provided in Table 1 for initial and boundary conditions does not help much to understand the chosen approach. Which is the origin of the values indicated in Table 1? Minimum values, winter typical values? Do they come from measurements? Values in Table 1 are for the surface layer. Do you assume any form of vertical profile? Are the mentioned aerosol species the only ones considered for pm2.5 and pm10 IC and BC?

2.3 Modifications of the aerosol emissions

Figure 2 is hardly understandable. The color shaded areas are not well defined. A “pixel-style” plot would be more readable. The isopleths and their labels are substantially unreadable. It is not a matter of picture quality or graphic resolution, the way the picture is built can definitely be improved.

Page 7
Lines 8-9
Does the sentence “due to the switch from residential heating from fossil fuels to wood burning” stay for “due to the switch of residential heating from fossil fuels to wood burning”?

3.1.1 Aerosol model performance under smog influence

Page 9
Line 22
Wrong open bracket.

Lines 28-29
I do not understand the meaning of the sentence “i.e. for the half PM1OA and for all PM1BC the daytime peaks occurred during the intense smog period.”. What does “the half of PM1 OA and of all PM1 BC” mean?

3.2 Impact of RWB smog on radiation

Page 13
Lines 21-23
The Authors say: “This slight increase in the concentration of aerosol species due to the aerosol-radiation interaction, is associated with an almost 10 m lower mean PBL height in case 4 compared to case 2, in accordance to the respective findings in Forkel et al. (2012).”
If case 4 has lower PBL height than case 2, I would expect to find higher concentrations for case 4 that for case 2, having to deal with near surface emissions. While you said that (case 2 – case 4) give positive results. What is the effective PBL height effect?

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ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (02 Aug 2017) by Alexander Baklanov

AR by Eleni Athanasopoulou on behalf of the Authors (08 Aug 2017) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

This work focuses on the impact of residential wood burning on aerosol levels, composition and radiation under the ongoing economic crisis in Greece. The atmospheric model COSMO-ART performed a series of runs during the winter of 2013–2014. Emission inputs were revised according to the detailed aerosol characterization by local measurements. Aerosol levels were found to be elevated and mostly composed of organics, yet the timing of the plume justifies the minor radiative cooling and feedbacks.