Chemical characterisation of water-soluble ions in atmospheric particulate matter on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia

Farren, Naomi J.; Dunmore, Rachel E.; Mead, Mohammed Iqbal; Mohd Nadzir, Mohd Shahrul; Samah, Azizan Abu; Phang, Siew-Moi; Bandy, Brian J.; Sturges, William T.; Hamilton, Jacqueline F.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1537-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1537-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1537-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 3

Research article

|

06 Feb 2019

Research article |

| 06 Feb 2019

Chemical characterisation of water-soluble ions in atmospheric particulate matter on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia

Naomi J. Farren, Rachel E. Dunmore, Mohammed Iqbal Mead, Mohd Shahrul Mohd Nadzir, Azizan Abu Samah, Siew-Moi Phang, Brian J. Bandy, William T. Sturges, and Jacqueline F. Hamilton

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Final revised paper (published on 06 Feb 2019)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 24 Apr 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: 'Comments to aerosol study in Peninsular Malaysia', Anonymous Referee #2, 13 Jun 2018
RC2: 'Reviewer comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Jun 2018
AC1: 'Response to referees', Naomi Farren, 31 Jul 2018

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Naomi Farren on behalf of the Authors (02 Aug 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (06 Aug 2018) by Hang Su

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (22 Sep 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors addressed part of the comments while some critical comments were not satisfactorily responded or fully explained.

As for Comment #4, the authors replied that “the levels of K+ do not rule out the influence of biomass burning on a regional/national scale.” At least, the authors should check whether there were biomass burning events on a regional/national scale by looking at the fire hotspots from satellites. Secondly, the authors responded that “Biomass burning aerosol in the wider region will have undergone atmospheric processing and dispersion prior to arrival at the measurement site, potentially lowering K+ levels and raising the concentration of secondary species.” If this statement is correct, sulfate should be also subject to the similar process as the authors found sulfate derived from long-range transport. However, the concentrations of sulfate maintained at high levels and I didn’t see an obvious dispersion effect.
There is one paper published in Scientific Reports that showed that the signal of biomass burning could be detectable from the north pole to the south pole from cruise measurement. The concentrations of K+ less than 1ug/m3 were likely representative of the background signal of biomass burning emissions over the region but didn’t necessarily point to the biomass burning activities in a wider region.

Comment #5:
The authors explained the high concentrations of sulfate in Cluster 5 came from higher altitudes in a low pressure system (no more explanations were offered). Then in the response to Comment #9, the authors explained that the concentrations of Cl- were low, which were also due to the air masses at high altitudes.
Those inconsistent analysis and discussions in different sections of the manuscript are common in this study.

Figure 6 & Figure 7,8
The pollution rose plot (Figure 6) of SO2 shows that there were almost no prevailing winds from the north and the high concentrations of SO2 mainly came from the west and south. But the backward trajectories analysis (Figure 7,8) dominantly derived from the north. I’m really confused that how could the analysis of meteorological conditions differed so much.

Overall, I didn’t see great improvement of the presentation quality of the manuscript. Both referees requested improving the quality of figures and descriptions while the authors didn’t take the suggestions. Data analysis is presented in a very simple manner and a lot of the discussions are based on hypothesis without firm evidence or other supportive data. Most importantly, contradictions were often found which makes the manuscript unreadable. I personally don’t think the current version of this manuscript meets the quality of the journal.

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (09 Oct 2018) by Hang Su

AR by Naomi Farren on behalf of the Authors (30 Nov 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (04 Jan 2019) by Hang Su

AR by Naomi Farren on behalf of the Authors (13 Jan 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (18 Jan 2019) by Hang Su

AR by Naomi Farren on behalf of the Authors (21 Jan 2019) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

During the winter monsoon, air quality on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia is influenced by local emissions and aged emissions transported from highly polluted East Asian regions. Atmospheric particulate matter has been sampled at a rural coastal location, and ion chromatography has been used to make time-resolved measurements of the major atmospheric ions present. Analysis of aerosol composition and back trajectories has provided an insight into common sources and formation pathways.