Three-dimensional evolution of Saharan dust transport towards Europe based on a 9-year EARLINET-optimized CALIPSO dataset

Marinou, Eleni; Amiridis, Vassilis; Binietoglou, Ioannis; Tsikerdekis, Athanasios; Solomos, Stavros; Proestakis, Emannouil; Konsta, Dimitra; Papagiannopoulos, Nikolaos; Tsekeri, Alexandra; Vlastou, Georgia; Zanis, Prodromos; Balis, Dimitrios; Wandinger, Ulla; Ansmann, Albert

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5893-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5893-2017

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

Special issue:

EARLINET aerosol profiling: contributions to atmospheric and...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5893-2017

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

Articles | Volume 17, issue 9

Research article

|

12 May 2017

Research article |

| 12 May 2017

Three-dimensional evolution of Saharan dust transport towards Europe based on a 9-year EARLINET-optimized CALIPSO dataset

Eleni Marinou, Vassilis Amiridis, Ioannis Binietoglou, Athanasios Tsikerdekis, Stavros Solomos, Emannouil Proestakis, Dimitra Konsta, Nikolaos Papagiannopoulos, Alexandra Tsekeri, Georgia Vlastou, Prodromos Zanis, Dimitrios Balis, Ulla Wandinger, and Albert Ansmann

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Final revised paper (published on 12 May 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 24 Nov 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review of "3D evolution of Saharan dust transport towards Europe based on a 9-year EARLINET-optimized CALIPSO dataset"', Anonymous Referee #3, 21 Dec 2016
- AC3: 'Answer to anonymous referee 3', Eleni Marinou, 04 Mar 2017
RC2: 'Comments on Marinou et al.', Anonymous Referee #4, 22 Dec 2016
- AC2: 'Answer to anonymous referee 4', Eleni Marinou, 03 Mar 2017
RC3: ': 'Review of 3D evolution of Saharan dust transport towards Europe based on a 9-year EARLINET-optimized CALIPSO dataset', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 Jan 2017
- AC1: 'Answer to anonymous referee 2', Eleni Marinou, 03 Mar 2017

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Eleni Marinou on behalf of the Authors (06 Mar 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 Mar 2017) by Matthias Tesche

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (15 Mar 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The manuscript is improved and most of the comments from the previous review have been addressed. The manuscript is ready for publication after some minor corrections:
Page 9
Line 8: It would be useful if you plot the boundaries of the regions considered in a map, either in Figure 1 or as an additional figure (maybe as supplementary material?).
Line 11: Remove “(with 100% as unity)”
Page 10
Line 14: Because of the color scale, it looks like there is no dust influence above Central and Northern Europe and this sentence might be confusing. Even though values are included in Table 2, you should consider add some text here including information on the values to avoid confusion and/or the use of a logarithmic color scale in the figure.
Line 32: Indicate here if the discrepancies are within the combined uncertainty
Page 11
Line 16: Include the definition of a.s.e. the first time is used in the text instead of here
Page 12
Line 2: Can you add some sentences here explaining how this correlate with the DOD in figure 1?
Line 15: Replace “Spain” by “Iberian Peninsula”
Line 28: Add some sentences in this paragraph explaining how the uncertainties influence your results, especially when discussing values as low as 5 Mm-1.
Page 13
Line 16: Consider starting a new paragraph here. Additionally, a reference to Table 3 is missing.
Lines 16-22: Consider rewriting this part. As it is now, it’s just a listing of the values in Table 3 with little or no discussion.
Line 22: It is still not clear what the point of including the dust mass concentration values in the study is. Consider removing them from the manuscript.
Line 28: Start new paragraph here.
Page 16
Lines 14-17: Consider moving this information to earlier in the section or rewriting.
Figure 7: Please, change the scale in Figure 7. It’s difficult to obtain any information from the plots in the first two rows with the current scale.
Revise the manuscript to check for misspelling and typos:
Page 2, line 9: “andupon”
Page 10, line 30: Replace “thought” by "though"
Page 11, line 18: “kmand”
Page 12, Line 16: “kmheight”
Page 12, line 17: “kma.s.l.”

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ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (21 Mar 2017) by Matthias Tesche

AR by Eleni Marinou on behalf of the Authors (06 Apr 2017) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

We provide a 3D multiyear analysis on the evolution of Saharan dust over Europe, using a dust product retrieved from the CALIPSO satellite and using EARLINET methods. The results reveal for the first time the 9-year 3D seasonal patterns of dust over its transport paths from the Sahara towards the Mediterranean. The dataset is unique with respect to its potential applications, including the evaluation of dust models and the estimation of ice nuclei concentration profiles from space.