An overview of airborne measurement in Nepal – Part 1: Vertical profile of aerosol size, number, spectral absorption, and meteorology

Singh, Ashish; Mahata, Khadak S.; Rupakheti, Maheswar; Junkermann, Wolfgang; Panday, Arnico K.; Lawrence, Mark G.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-245-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-245-2019

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-245-2019

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

Articles | Volume 19, issue 1

Research article

|

08 Jan 2019

Research article |

| 08 Jan 2019

An overview of airborne measurement in Nepal – Part 1: Vertical profile of aerosol size, number, spectral absorption, and meteorology

Ashish Singh, Khadak S. Mahata, Maheswar Rupakheti, Wolfgang Junkermann, Arnico K. Panday, and Mark G. Lawrence

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Final revised paper (published on 08 Jan 2019)
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Preprint (discussion started on 03 Apr 2018)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review of: “An overview on the airborne measurement in Nepal,-part 1: vertical profile of aerosol size-number, spectral absorption and meteorology” by Ashish Singh et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 29 Jun 2018
- AC1: 'Authors response', Ashish Singh, 05 Nov 2018
RC2: 'Referee comment', Anonymous Referee #3, 20 Aug 2018
- AC2: 'Authors response', Ashish Singh, 05 Nov 2018

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Ashish Singh on behalf of the Authors (05 Nov 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (22 Nov 2018) by Tuukka Petäjä

Editor comments for Singh et al.

Dear Authors,
You have answered the main concerns of the referees well.

I have one main concern and additional editorial comments as follows:

1) According to the text it clear that you performed the observations in May 2016. Please verify that your data in Figures are from 2016 and not from 2017 as indicated in few places in the text. Further, please add the year to all the dates throughout the text for clarity.

Editorial comments:
Line 88: the highest
Line 93: the highest
Line 101: AOD not defined
Line 137: model 1.108
Line 138: CPC not defined
Line 141: DC not defined (not needed?)
Line 143: define higher.
Line 146: LCD not defined (not needed?)
Line 155: Is this the length of the sampling tube?
Line 157: How was the sample flow produced for the different instruments? With one general pump or separate pumps for all the instruments?
Line 175: A typical flight commenced from the Pokhara Regional Airport (818 m a.s.l.) and we flew 5-10 km …
Line 179: Year should be 2016?
Line 184: was .. received
Line 187: steps of quality control and quality assurance
Line 201: On a local / regional scale, the winds…
Line 246: increased
Line 247: the increase of … What do you mean total AOD? Sum of fine and coarse?
Line 249: … were also present.
Line 250: Reference is needed for the BC-like classification based on Ångström exponents.
Line 251: was observed
Line 254: May 2016?
Line 256: The visibility
Line 258: The aerosol optical …
Line 262: decreased below 1
Line 263: The flight day
Line 281: total particle number concentration
Line 293: How can you separate primary and secondary emissions?
Line 294: influenced
Line 296: continued
Line 297: remove “profiles”. … and a strong decrease with altitude was observed.
Line 298: total particle number concentration
Line 300: How can you separate primary and secondary emissions?
Line 318: reformulate the last sentence for clarity.
Line 329: decreased then
Line 336: .. thus explaining the observed decrease in the measured aerosol parameters.
Line 340: please clarify the sentence about calculation of slope.
Line 345: the absorption coefficient
Line 348: differed
Line 349: showed
Line 353: the biomass
Line 354: the AAE values
Line 381: please add the proper scientific reference to HYSPLIT.
Line 392: influenced
Line 409: transport of air pollution in…
Line 410: PBL is not defined.
Line 417: were
Line 421: occurred. Why is “trough” in quotation marks?
Line 428: shorter and longer wavelengths.
Line 431: bypassed
Line 432: contained
Line 446: The results presented in this paper should be considered as a pilot study mapping out the aerosol concentrations and their interactions with meteorological processes in the Pokhara Valley due to the limited flight time.
Line 448: aerosol parameters
Line 449: The observed total number concentration
Line 451: The increase of boundary layer height contributed to the differences …
Line 456: fell in the range
Line 467: in the surrounding

Table 1:
1. Aerosol particle number size distribution
2. Total particle number concentration

Figure 3: Please explain AOD_F and AOD_C. Check the year.
Figure 4: aerosol parameters, total particle number concentation
Figure 6: MODIS in capital letters.

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AR by Ashish Singh on behalf of the Authors (23 Nov 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (10 Dec 2018) by Tuukka Petäjä

AR by Ashish Singh on behalf of the Authors (10 Dec 2018) Manuscript

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Short summary

This paper reports the first airborne measurement campaign in the central Himalayan foothill region, one of the polluted but relatively poorly sampled regions of the world. The measurement campaign quantifies the vertical distribution of aerosols over a polluted mountain valley in the Himalayan foothills and investigates the extent of regional emission transport.