Articles | Volume 18, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-1457-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-1457-2018
Research article
 | 
02 Feb 2018
Research article |  | 02 Feb 2018

Assessing the ability to derive rates of polar middle-atmospheric descent using trace gas measurements from remote sensors

Niall J. Ryan, Douglas E. Kinnison, Rolando R. Garcia, Christoph G. Hoffmann, Mathias Palm, Uwe Raffalski, and Justus Notholt

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AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment
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AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision
AR by Niall Ryan on behalf of the Authors (15 Sep 2017)  Author's response    Manuscript
ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (16 Oct 2017) by William Ward
RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (18 Oct 2017)
RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (03 Nov 2017)
ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (19 Nov 2017) by William Ward
AR by Niall Ryan on behalf of the Authors (27 Nov 2017)  Author's response    Manuscript
ED: Publish as is (16 Dec 2017) by William Ward
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Short summary
We used model output and instrument data to assess how well polar atmospheric descent rates can be derived using concentration measurements of long-lived gases in the atmosphere. The results indicate that the method incurs errors as large as the descent rates, and often leads to a misinterpretation of the direction of air motion. The rates derived using this method do not appear to represent the mean vertical wind in the middle atmosphere, and we suggest an alternate definition.
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