Solar “brightening” impact on summer surface ozone between 1990 and 2010 in Europe – a model sensitivity study of the influence of the aerosol–radiation interactions

Oikonomakis, Emmanouil; Aksoyoglu, Sebnem; Wild, Martin; Ciarelli, Giancarlo; Baltensperger, Urs; Prévôt, André Stephan Henry

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-9741-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 13

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-9741-2018

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-9741-2018

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

Articles | Volume 18, issue 13

Research article

|

11 Jul 2018

Research article |

| 11 Jul 2018

Solar “brightening” impact on summer surface ozone between 1990 and 2010 in Europe – a model sensitivity study of the influence of the aerosol–radiation interactions

Emmanouil Oikonomakis, Sebnem Aksoyoglu, Martin Wild, Giancarlo Ciarelli, Urs Baltensperger, and André Stephan Henry Prévôt

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Final revised paper (published on 11 Jul 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 02 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: 'review-acp-2017-1182', Anonymous Referee #1, 10 Feb 2018
- AC1: 'Reply to the 1st anonymous referee', Emmanouil Oikonomakis, 11 Apr 2018
RC2: 'Referee Comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 12 Feb 2018
- AC2: 'Reply to the 2nd anonymous referee', Emmanouil Oikonomakis, 11 Apr 2018

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Emmanouil Oikonomakis on behalf of the Authors (11 Apr 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (23 Apr 2018) by Jason West

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (12 Jun 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

General Remarks:
Reviewer’s response: I am not satisfied with the authors’ reply to my first main question. I understand how the authors designed PHOT1-3 when I read their original manuscript. What I do not understand is why the authors did not calculate AOD in 1990 based on the real PM in that time. The purpose of the study is to find the reason for summer surface O3 change between 1990 and 2010 over Europe. The authors used 2010 emission to calculate 2010 AOD. So why would they not do this same in 1990? Of course, the uncertainty of the currently available emissions in 1990 is large as pointed out by the authors. However, the emissions still represent the best estimates by our scientific community. If the authors believe it is more appropriated to give a range of AOD in 1990 in this study, they should at least explain why in the paper.

Reviewer’s response: It is good that the authors have changed the title to address my second main question, although they do not mention it in their reply letter.

Specific question 8
Reviewer’s original question: Page 10 lines 4-6: the criteria III should not be listed here since all PM2.5 data in this study are estimated based on PM10, while not measured.
The authors’ reply: The criteria iii is about the PM10 and PM2.5 data availability for 2010. In Sect. 2.2 we mentioned that both the PM10 and PM2.5 were provided by Airbase and NABEL networks and both products were measured at the respective sites.
Reviewer’s response: It is better for the authors to point out that PM2.5 measurements may not be available in years other than 2010. Otherwise, these sentences are confusing: “they had both PM10 and PM2.5 data for 2010” (page 10 line 20) and “… the aerosol coarse mode was subtracted to estimate PM2.5 concentrations” (page 10 line 22). Readers may not be familiar with the temporal coverage of Airbase and NABEL networks.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (12 Jun 2018)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (12 Jun 2018) by Jason West

AR by Emmanouil Oikonomakis on behalf of the Authors (22 Jun 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (25 Jun 2018) by Jason West

AR by Emmanouil Oikonomakis on behalf of the Authors (26 Jun 2018) Manuscript

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Short summary

We report a model sensitivity study on the impact of aerosol–radiation interaction (ARI) changes in Europe between 1990 and 2010 on summer surface ozone via effects on photolysis rates and biogenic emissions. The overall impact of ARI changes on ozone was relatively small when compared to the total ozone concentrations, but it was more important when compared to the order of magnitude of ozone trends, indicating a potential partial damping of the effects of ozone precursor emissions' reduction.