Aerosol–cloud interactions in mixed-phase convective clouds – Part 2: Meteorological ensemble

Miltenberger, Annette K.; Field, Paul R.; Hill, Adrian A.; Shipway, Ben J.; Wilkinson, Jonathan M.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-10593-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 14

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-10593-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-10593-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 14

Research article

|

25 Jul 2018

Research article |

| 25 Jul 2018

Aerosol–cloud interactions in mixed-phase convective clouds – Part 2: Meteorological ensemble

Annette K. Miltenberger, Paul R. Field, Adrian A. Hill, Ben J. Shipway, and Jonathan M. Wilkinson

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Final revised paper (published on 25 Jul 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 26 Feb 2018)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review of the manuscript "Aerosol-cloud interactions in mixed-phase convective clouds. Part 2: Meteorological ensemble"', Anonymous Referee #1, 21 Mar 2018
- AC1: 'Reply to RC1', Annette Miltenberger, 05 Jun 2018
RC2: 'Please find the review in the attached pdf', Anonymous Referee #2, 31 Mar 2018
- AC2: 'Reply to RC2', Annette Miltenberger, 05 Jun 2018

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Annette Miltenberger on behalf of the Authors (05 Jun 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (07 Jun 2018) by Johannes Quaas

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (08 Jun 2018)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (20 Jun 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The following is a review of the second version of the article entitled “Aerosol-cloud interactions in mixed-phase convective clouds. Part 2: Meteorological ensemble” by A. Miltenberger and coauthors for publication in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal.

General opinion:

I keep thinking that the article is appropriate for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, but also I still think it could be further improved.

I am concerned because it seems that the authors have not corrected some of the errors found by the two reviewers in the first review iteration process. For instance, there are still some typos in the figure numbers, and there are still figures with lines connecting the dots of different ensemble members (which we agreed has no sense and that must be removed, e.g. Fig. 9a).

Besides, this review iteration has been wearisome due to the fact that most of the pages and lines referenced in the answer to reviewer document are not correct (from the 12th answer until the end, the reference to page and line number are wrong), and because some of the changes in the main paper are not marked in green (e.g.
p. 2, l. 7: “received particular attention”
p. 2, l. 8: “strongly over the historic period”
p. 5, l. 6: “0000 UTC”
p. 5, l. 8: “horizontal”
p. 5, l. 19: “in this study is configured”
p. 9, l. 15: “4.2. Cloud-property variability” (title)
p. 9, l. 24: “(e.g., Fridlind et al., 2010)
p. 9, l. 25: “areal” and “(e.g., Grosvenor et al., 2017)”
p. 9, l. 27: “However”
p. 10, l. 25: “respectively”
p. 36, l. 1: “0900”)
and none of the changes in the supplement, which makes me think perhaps many other changes were not marked neither.

On top, the number of figures has not been reduced, as suggested. Instead some of the figures have been combined as sub-figures into single figures, sometimes without any compelling reason.

Specific issues:

Although the authors used the significance results presented in Table 1 all over the article, as I suggested, I still have some considerations to add:

- It would be fair to remark that some statements are only valid for the paired ensemble members tests and add “and only for paired ensembles” to the sentences in:
p. 11, l. 29-30 (“The change of cloud top height is only significant for an increase in aerosol concentrations from the low to the standard scenario”),
p. 12 l. 8-9 (“Aerosol-induced modifications of CR and G are only significant for a decrease of aerosol concentrations relative to the standard scenario”).
p. 14, l. 5 (“Aerosol-induced modifications to the outgoing radiative fluxes are significant at the 5 % level”).

- I think they mean 95 % level of confidence instead of 5 %, since 5% level of confidence would be very low.

Figure 1 provided in the “Reply to comments form reviewer #2” has the OLR_cc plot twice (bottom left and middle right), and the capture is not correct, since it refers to the mean cloud fraction (bottom right), which is not shown in the figure. Additionally, I recommend the authors not to label the figures this document in the same way as in the paper but with roman numbers or letters (e.g. Fig I, II… or Fig. a, b...) since it becomes very confusing to have figure numbers for the old version paper, for the new version and for the reply figures. Furthermore, there are figures wrong referenced in the text, in particular “SI Fig. 12” in page 13 line 14 should read “SI Fig. 13”. In fact, SI Fig. 13 is not cited at all in the text (I think it should be cited at least in p. 16 l. 3), as well as SI Fig. 14b and SI Fig. 15b which are not cited neither.

Some sentence citations of the altered new version paper text are not correctly written in the answers document (“Reply to comments form reviewer #2”):
- You said the altered text in p.10 l. 13-15 l. 18-20 is “[…] (SI Fig. 13)” and it says “[…] (SI Fig. 12)” in the paper text.
- You said you renamed section 5 as “Aerosol-induced cloud property changes in different meteorological ensemble members (paired meteorology)”, but in fact the new title which appears in the paper text is “Cloud property changes between ensemble members in different aerosol and identical meteorological initial and boundary conditions”.
- You said in p. 12 l. 21-23 l. 27-29 “[…] Fig. 12”, but in fact in the text says “[...] Fig. 9B”.
- Answering to my question regarding the PE change you refer me to Fig. 13 which it does not exist!
- Figure 3 of the “Reply to comments from reviewer #2” is not mentioned anywhere, I guess you identified it as “Fig. 4” in your reply.,

Regarding the answer to my question “Page 13, lines 12-14: I do not think “all percentiles up to and including the 75 th percentile show an increase with the aerosol concentration” for all ensemble members, since in ensemble member 4 the standard aerosol is lower than the other two and in member 7 the high aerosol is lower than the low and standard aerosol concentration”, first of all, you answered that the text has been modified but the sentence you wrote in the answer document is not the same written in green in the paper. And secondly, I think the sentence is still not correct, since it is not true for ensemble number 7, consider changing it for “almost all ensemble members”.

After, you answered that “the aerosol direct effect is not included in the model simulations”, then, I think it should be stated somewhere in the methodology since it has major effects on the radiative balance latter on.

Some comments on the figures:

Figure 9:
I would change the sentence “The dots represents [...]” for “The dots and diamonds represent [...]”.
I would change the words “open”/“closed” for “filled”/”unfilled”.
Please add a filled symbol in the legend referring to “without advective term” simulations to make it complete.

Figure SI 4: reference to the orange curves is missing. Please, consider adding “(orange)” after “red”.

Figure SI 12: it could be improved by plotting all three variables in a single plot instead of three (with different colors or symbols). Then, the three variables will be in the same x-y axis and the magnitude of each of them will be much more obvious than is now, and therefore better showing how the impact of aerosols in clear sky is prevailing over cloudy skies.

Typos:

- p. 4, l. 31: “[…] from each cluster the member closest to the mean cluster […]” should read “[…] from each cluster the closest member to the mean cluster […]”.
- p. 9, l. 29: reference to non-existing figure 10c should read “Fig. 10”.
- p. 13, l. 29: “Fig. reffig:cdnc”

Regarding all the other technical issues and questions I am satisfied with the answers provided by the authors.

I recommend the article publication in ACP after minor revision.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (23 Jun 2018) by Johannes Quaas

AR by Annette Miltenberger on behalf of the Authors (29 Jun 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (11 Jul 2018) by Johannes Quaas

AR by Annette Miltenberger on behalf of the Authors (13 Jul 2018)