Retrieving the age of air spectrum from tracers: principle and method

Podglajen, Aurélien; Ploeger, Felix

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1767-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1767-2019

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1767-2019

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

Articles | Volume 19, issue 3

Research article

|

08 Feb 2019

Research article |

| 08 Feb 2019

Retrieving the age of air spectrum from tracers: principle and method

Aurélien Podglajen and Felix Ploeger

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Final revised paper (published on 08 Feb 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 05 Oct 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Reviewer Comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 25 Oct 2018
- AC1: 'Retrieving the age of air spectrum from tracers: principle and method: reply to reviewer 1', Aurelien Podglajen, 26 Dec 2018
RC2: 'Interactive comment on “Retrieving the age of air spectrum from tracers: principle and method” by Aurélien Podglajen and Felix Ploeger', Anonymous Referee #2, 08 Nov 2018
- AC2: 'Retrieving the age of air spectrum from tracers: principle and method: reply to reviewer 2', Aurelien Podglajen, 26 Dec 2018

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Aurélien Podglajen on behalf of the Authors (26 Dec 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (11 Jan 2019) by Federico Fierli

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (11 Jan 2019)

ED: Publish as is (11 Jan 2019) by Federico Fierli

AR by Aurélien Podglajen on behalf of the Authors (11 Jan 2019)

Short summary

The age spectrum (distribution of transit times) provides a compact description of transport from the surface to a given point in the atmosphere. It also determines the surface-emitted tracer content of an air parcel. We propose a method to invert this relation in order to retrieve age spectra from tracer concentrations and demonstrate its feasibility in idealized and model setups. Applied to observations, the approach might help to better constrain atmospheric transport timescales.