Adjoint inversion of Chinese non-methane volatile organic compound emissions using space-based observations of formaldehyde and glyoxal

Cao, Hansen; Fu, Tzung-May; Zhang, Lin; Henze, Daven K.; Miller, Christopher Chan; Lerot, Christophe; Abad, Gonzalo González; De Smedt, Isabelle; Zhang, Qiang; van Roozendael, Michel; Hendrick, François; Chance, Kelly; Li, Jie; Zheng, Junyu; Zhao, Yuanhong

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15017-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 20

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 15017–15046, 2018

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15017-2018

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

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 15017–15046, 2018

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15017-2018

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

Articles | Volume 18, issue 20

Research article 19 Oct 2018

Research article | 19 Oct 2018

Adjoint inversion of Chinese non-methane volatile organic compound emissions using space-based observations of formaldehyde and glyoxal

Hansen Cao et al.

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Final revised paper (published on 19 Oct 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 15 Jan 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: 'Reviewer comments for Cao et al., 2018', Anonymous Referee #2, 14 Feb 2018
- AC1: 'reply for both reviews for acp-2017-1136 (Hansen Cao et al., 2018)', Tzung-May Fu, 30 Jun 2018
RC2: 'Review of Cao et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 09 Mar 2018
- AC2: 'reply for both reviews for acp-2017-1136 (Hansen Cao et al., 2018)', Tzung-May Fu, 30 Jun 2018
AC3: 'reply for both reviews for acp-2017-1136 (Hansen Cao et al., 2018)', Tzung-May Fu, 30 Jun 2018

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Anna Wenzel on behalf of the Authors (10 Jul 2018) Author's response

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (15 Jul 2018) by Chul Han Song

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (06 Aug 2018)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (22 Aug 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The revised manuscript by Cao et al. represents a major improvement compared to the previous version. The authors have delivered a serious effort to comply with the criticism of the first report by including comparisons with ground-based observations, and by significantly improving the presentation and consistency. However, there are still weaknesses in the revised manuscript. Page numbers refer to the revised version.

1) Section 3 should present only comparisons with the a priori model, but a posteriori results are also shown in Figure S4 in the same section. This is inconsistent with the section title, please change for consistency.

2) The ground-based data are not obtained during the studied year (2007). How can this affect the comparisons? The interannual variability of CH2O MAX-DOAS data should be discussed. For stations with ground-based data available for more than one year, the model results should be compared to a mean seasonal cycle.

3) l.467. 'Nevertheless, these ground-based measurements....', change to 'The measurements...' to avoid repetition with l. 465. Here and elsewhere check the text to avoid repetitions.

4) l.446. 'reflecting the seasonal biomass burning emissions there', change to 'reflecting the occurrence of seasonal biomass burning'

5) l.542-548. Needs rewriting. Why 'two possible causes'? Change to 'Possible causes for this apparent contradiction could be...' What kind of errors do you mean in l.545? In the chemical oxidation scheme? Please elaborate on the possible errors.

6) l.553. 'disparate, and apparently contradictory'

7) l.559. You mention that the cost function decrease is 8% in one inversion. This reduction is unusually modest. Can you explain in which inversion experiments this occurred and what were the reasons?

8) l.617. 'The impacts...was', correct the verb. This type of error exists in other sentences too, please check carefully the grammar before resubmission.

9) l.742. 'seasonal contrast', replace by 'seasonal amplitude'

10) l.744. 'stronger seasonal contrast' appears also in l.742. Try to avoid repetitions throughout the text.

11) l.763-765. Bad phrasing. Start your sentence by e.g. 'The comparisons for ozone corroborate the stronger seasonal amplitude of the top-down NMVOC emissions derived in this study'.

12) Section 6. Here comparisons are presented for June and December. Why did you focus only on those months? The year-round ozone variability at sites where data are available should be checked.

13) Table 1. The last row seems to be equal to the average of the previous rows. Why don't you write this explicitly in the last row instead of 'Our top-down estimates'?

I think that the revised manuscript will be suitable for publication after the aforementioned points are adequately addressed.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (02 Sep 2018) by Chul Han Song

AR by Tzung-May Fu on behalf of the Authors (10 Sep 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (12 Sep 2018) by Chul Han Song

AR by Tzung-May Fu on behalf of the Authors (14 Sep 2018) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

Our top-down estimates for annual total Chinese NMVOC emissions was 30.7 to 49.5 Tg y⁻¹, including 16.4 to 23.6 Tg y⁻¹ from anthropogenic sources, 12.2 to 22.8 Tg y⁻¹ from biogenic sources, and 2.08 to 3.13 Tg y⁻¹ from biomass burning. Our four inversions consistently showed that the emissions of Chinese anthropogenic NMVOC precursors of glyoxal were larger than the a priori estimates. The glyoxal and formaldehyde constraints helped distinguish the NMVOC species from different sources.