Links of climate variability in Arctic sea ice, Eurasian teleconnection pattern and summer surface ozone pollution in North China

Yin, Zhicong; Wang, Huijun; Li, Yuyan; Ma, Xiaohui; Zhang, Xinyu

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-3857-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-3857-2019

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-3857-2019

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

Articles | Volume 19, issue 6

Research article

|

25 Mar 2019

Research article |

| 25 Mar 2019

Links of climate variability in Arctic sea ice, Eurasian teleconnection pattern and summer surface ozone pollution in North China

Zhicong Yin, Huijun Wang, Yuyan Li, Xiaohui Ma, and Xinyu Zhang

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Final revised paper (published on 25 Mar 2019)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 19 Nov 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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- Supplement

RC1: 'Reviewer Comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 27 Nov 2018
- AC1: 'Response to reviewer 1', Yin Zhicong, 15 Jan 2019
RC2: 'Referee Comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 18 Dec 2018
- AC2: 'Response to reviewer 2', Yin Zhicong, 15 Jan 2019

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Yin Zhicong on behalf of the Authors (16 Jan 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (26 Jan 2019) by Bryan N. Duncan

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (29 Jan 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review of revised paper “Arctic sea ice, Eurasia teleconnection pattern and summer surface ozone pollution in North China: in terms of climate variability” by Yin et al.

General Comments:

Overall I am happy with how the authors have addressed my comments. Some of the overstatement about “seasonal prediction” and the assumption that the Ozone Weather Index (OWI) ≈ surface ozone pollution have been removed. The authors have also dedicated more discussion to the meteorological links among the sea ice, Eurasia teleconnection pattern (EU), and the OWI. The addition of CAM5 numerical simulation experiments (and Figure 12) also adds confidence in the authors’ findings on the links among sea ice, the EU pattern, and ozone-related weather conditions. Sections 4 and 5 have been extended and are much clearer. I am also pleased to see several of the supplementary figures moved to the main paper. This makes the paper easier to follow and makes more organizational sense.

I’ll suggest a slight title change because the current one is a bit awkward, but I think the authors have the right idea: “Climate variability links among Arctic sea ice, Eurasia teleconnection pattern and summer surface ozone pollution in North China”

Recommendation:

The authors have addressed my major concerns with the previous version. Aside from a couple specific comments and minor technical corrections, I find this paper acceptable for publication in ACP. The technical corrections were numerous so the English in the paper should be carefully reviewed once more by the authors and copy editor before publication.

Specific/Minor Comments:

Line 243: What is “each September 1st?” Meteorological data from September 1st on each of the last 5 years? What 5 years? Please be clear here.

Line 260: Could you explain your “generalized additive model” more in the text? How do you construct the model that gives you the red line in Figure 11?

Technical Corrections:

The line numbers in these comments reflect the non-tracked changes version of the manuscript.

Line 12: “Based on…”

Line 12: Be sure to subscript the O3 in all instances.

Line 21: Change “specially” to “specifically”

Line 24: I preferred the original “increasing” to “serious.” This sentence could be clarified by writing: “Over the past several decades, along with social and economic development, air pollution has been increasing in China.”

Line 26-28: “haze pollution is being controlled…” “appearing as a sharp decrease in fine particulate matter.”

Line 28: Change “always occurred on” to “always occurs on”

Line 29-30: It is unclear what you mean by “The negative effects of surface O3 pollution was not weaker than those of haze…” It is commonly known that particulate matter pollution is generally more harmful to human health than ozone pollution.

Line 42: delete the comma on this line.

Line 43: Change “to” to “that”

Line 46-47: Suggested rewrite “A strong positive correlation also exists between the East Asian summer monsoon and summer mean ozone in China.”

Line 51: Suggested rewrite: “Local photochemical production was the main source of O3.”

Line 52: Change “violent” to “intense”

Line 66: Change “specially” to “specifically”

Line 68-69: I think this sentence is unnecessary, or could be moved elsewhere to a more appropriate location in the text.

Line 71: Change “high” to “amsl” for above mean sea level.

Line 72: Need a space between “to2017”

Line 76: In your response to my review you indicated that you were using sea ice area, but here you cite sea ice “concentrations.” Please be clear about which data set you are using.

Line 88: “Hadley Centre”

Line 91: “and vice versa”

Line 101: “Hadley Centre”

Line 108: “severe”

Line 119: Suggested rewrite: “…, the covariation of SDZ MDA8 and MDA8 in North China strengthens the representativeness of SDZ for North China.”

Line 124: I still find “non-surface” to be confusing. Perhaps make this “non-polluted surface O3” (NPO) and “moderately-polluted surface O3” (MPO)?

Line 127: Replace “were not the NOP days” with “exceeded the NOP threshold,” Also see my comment about this acronym.

Line 133: Replace “During calculating” with “During the calculation of”. The rest of this sentence is unclear and needs to be rewritten.

Line 139: Replace “was” with “were”

Line 142: Replace “the photochemical reaction” with “photochemistry”

Line 151: Replace “enlarged” with “enhanced”

Line 156: “(Figures S2 and S3)”

Line 177: Delete “;even the MDA8 was the minimum”

Line 179: Replace “kinds of reanalysis data.” with “specific reanalysis data set.”

Line 213: Delete “a harsh and” and replace “reaction” with “production”

Line 214: Replace “by” with “with”

Line 215: “The correspondence between the large-scale…”

Line 223: “responses like the EU pattern…”

Line 224: Replace “monthly checked” with “evaluated each month.”

Line 228: Replace “anomalies may be” with “anomalies are”

Line 241: Replace “contributed” with “contributing”

Line 242: Replace “firstly integrated 20 years” with “was first integrated for 20 years”

Line 246: Replace “i.e., totally 30 sensitive runs.” With “i.e. a total of 30 sensitivity runs.”

Line 247: Replace “of 30 sensitive ensembles” with “of the 30 sensitivity runs”

Line 248: Replace “were the” with “represent the”

Line 253: Replace “violent” with “intense”

Line 253-254: Replace “the photochemical reaction” with “photochemical production”

Line 254: Replace “On the other side,” with “Additionally,”

Line 256: Replace “but” with “and”

Line 263: Replace “NOAA” with “NCEP/NCAR”

Line 268: Replace “seasonal look” with “understanding of seasonal variability”

Line 272: “less low- and medium-altitude cloud cover”

Line 273: Replace “reaction” with “reactions”

Line 276: Replace “casually” with “causally”

Line 283: Replace “the photochemical reaction” with “photochemistry”

Line 284: Replace “the atmospheric” with “atmospheric”

Figure S1 Caption: Delete “were” in “were belonged”

Figure S2 Caption: Replace “NOAA” with “NCEP/NCAR”

Figure S3 Caption: Replace “basing” with “based” and replace “NOAA” with “NCEP/NCAR”

Figure S4-S6 Caption: Replace “NOAA” with “NCEP/NCAR

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RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (09 Feb 2019)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (10 Feb 2019) by Bryan N. Duncan

AR by Yin Zhicong on behalf of the Authors (17 Feb 2019) Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (22 Feb 2019) by Bryan N. Duncan

Dear Authors,

Thank you for addressing the reviewers’ comments. The paper is now much stronger and better communicates your research. However, there are two minor issues that should be corrected before publication.

First, the discussion around the definition of the O3 weather index (OWI) is confusing (page 47 in the author's responses, line 183). I support one reviewer’s comment to add an Equation 2 with a more clear description of the terms. The OWI is an important part of the paper, but it’s definition and definitions of its variables are buried within several paragraphs (e.g., lines, 183, 168, 172, and 176). Also what does the “I” represent in the variables (e.g., V10mI)? Addressing this reviewer’s comment will improve readability of the paper.

Second, please justify better and more clearly why you are showing the difference in temperature between the surface and 200 hPa. See the original reviewer comment and your response on p. 31 of your response to reviews. For a paper focused on meteorology, you need a reference to back up why you made this figure. You didn't show SLP maps or upper-level wind patterns to show what the large-scale flow patterns might be. It is hard to tell from your now Figure 2a, but it may be for the polluted conditions, the winds are northward through the box, between cyclonic winds to the west and anticylonic flow to the east...hence warmer surface temps as in the warm sector/under a high pressure. Possibly the upper-level temperatures have to do with the location of the upper-level ridge/trough patterns but it is hard to tell from the composite of T200. If you can't explain why you plotted T at 200 hPa, it may not be worth mentioning or plotting at all.

Again, the paper is much improved. With these two additional clarifications, your paper will be a strong contribution to ACP.

Sincerely, Bryan Duncan

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AR by Yin Zhicong on behalf of the Authors (25 Feb 2019) Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (28 Feb 2019) by Bryan N. Duncan

AR by Yin Zhicong on behalf of the Authors (08 Mar 2019) Manuscript

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Short summary

Summer surface ozone pollution has rapidly intensified recently, damaging human and ecosystem health. This study aims to examine the large-scale atmospheric circulations associated with the interannual variation in summer surface O₃ pollution in North China based on long-term meteorological observations. The impacts of Arctic sea ice were also revealed. The outcomes may provide a basis for understanding the interannual variation of 0₃ pollution and its seasonal to interannual prediction.