Chemistry&ndash;climate interactions of aerosol nitrate from lightning

Tost, Holger

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-1125-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-1125-2017

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

Special issue:

The Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) (ACP/GMD inter-journal...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-1125-2017

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

Articles | Volume 17, issue 2

Research article

|

24 Jan 2017

Research article |

| 24 Jan 2017

Chemistry–climate interactions of aerosol nitrate from lightning

Holger Tost

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Final revised paper (published on 24 Jan 2017)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 27 Jun 2016)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Comments on Tost et al paper', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 Aug 2016
- AC1: 'Replies to reviewer 1', Holger Tost, 05 Dec 2016
RC2: 'Comment on "Chemistry-climate interactions of aerosol nitrate from lightning"', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Sep 2016
- AC2: 'Replies to reviewer 2', Holger Tost, 05 Dec 2016

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Holger Tost on behalf of the Authors (06 Dec 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (19 Dec 2016) by Kostas Tsigaridis

AR by Holger Tost on behalf of the Authors (20 Dec 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (21 Dec 2016) by Kostas Tsigaridis

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (03 Jan 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Second Review of “Chemistry-climate interactions of aerosol nitrate from lightning” by Tost

Summary:
The paper has improved substantially from the initial submission. The author has done a nice job of responding to the reviewer comments. I recommend minor revision to the current paper addressing the comments below.

One general comment is that sometimes the revised text feels like a sentence has been tacked on to a paragraph in order to satisfy a reviewer comment. It would be good to review these changes to be sure the flow of the writing is maintained.

Specific Comments:
1. Lines 42-47 contain the response to whether there is observational evidence of NH4NO3 formation in convective outflow regions. The response provides evidence of nitrate and NH3 separately. Along those lines, I would like to point the author to a recent paper presenting results on DC3 aerosol measurements:

Yang et al. (2015) Aerosol transport and wet scavenging in deep convective clouds: A case study and model evaluation using a multiple passive tracer analysis approach. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 120, 8448–8468, doi: 10.1002/2015JD023647.

2. Lines 304-311. It would be good to include some of the remarks in the response to reviewer comments here. For example, the paragraph should state why the methane lifetime is used instead of OH itself:

“The OH burden of the atmosphere differs by only 10% …, but these differences do not reveal the impact on the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere that the methane lifetime reflects. The emissions of LNOx are responsible for …”

3. Lines 313-315. These lines state that the aqueous-phase production of sulfate is not important because liquid water is in the lower troposphere. I do not find this to be a completely satisfying response. Are ozone and hydrogen peroxide mixing ratios significantly changed in the lower troposphere? If so, then aqueous phase sulfate production could be important. If not, then please revise to also say the oxidants do not change much either.

4. Lines 423-425. After reading the text again, I realize that the author’s response to why the extinction maximum is in the middle of the troposphere is correct and stated in the subsequent paragraph of the manuscript. However, the text is not clearly written connecting lines 423-425 to the next paragraph. Perhaps a phrase can be added to line 425 that says “as will be shown next, sulfate aerosols are responsible for this enhancement in extinction”. Or revise the first sentence of the subsequent paragraph to better connect the discussion.

5. Figure 4. I agree with the other reviewer in that Figure 4 can be read much better as a 9-panel plot without the map in background. Increase the size of the panels and have less empty space in the figure.

Figure 4. I would still like to see changes in the color bar so that it is easier to read. For me, it is especially important to change the colors with values near 0 to be white. I think the statistically significant regions will be more prominent by making this change.

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ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (03 Jan 2017) by Kostas Tsigaridis

AR by Holger Tost on behalf of the Authors (05 Jan 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (06 Jan 2017) by Kostas Tsigaridis

AR by Holger Tost on behalf of the Authors (10 Jan 2017) Manuscript

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Short summary

The paper describes the impact of lightning and the associated NO_x emissions on upper-tropospheric aerosol nitrate. The consequences for both the chemical composition of the atmosphere as well as climatic impacts, which originate from lightning and modified aerosol particles, are analysed and discussed.