Possible mechanisms of summer cirrus clouds over the Tibetan Plateau

Zhang, Feng; Yu, Qiu-Run; Mao, Jia-Li; Dan, Chen; Wang, Yanyu; He, Qianshan; Cheng, Tiantao; Chen, Chunhong; Liu, Dongwei; Gao, Yanping

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11799-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 20

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11799-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Study of ozone, aerosols and radiation over the Tibetan Plateau...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11799-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 20

Research article

|

19 Oct 2020

Research article |

| 19 Oct 2020

Possible mechanisms of summer cirrus clouds over the Tibetan Plateau

Feng Zhang, Qiu-Run Yu, Jia-Li Mao, Chen Dan, Yanyu Wang, Qianshan He, Tiantao Cheng, Chunhong Chen, Dongwei Liu, and Yanping Gao

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Final revised paper (published on 19 Oct 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 02 Jan 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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SC1: 'a short comment', Xue Wu, 08 Jan 2020
- AC1: 'R:Interactive Comment', Qianshan He, 23 Jun 2020
RC1: 'Referee Comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 06 Feb 2020
- AC2: 'R:RC1', Qianshan He, 23 Jun 2020
RC2: 'Comments to Authors', Anonymous Referee #2, 27 Mar 2020
- AC3: 'R:RC2', Qianshan He, 23 Jun 2020

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Qianshan He on behalf of the Authors (23 Jun 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (05 Jul 2020) by Wenshou Tian

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (09 Jul 2020)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (19 Jul 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Zhang et al. “Possible mechanisms of summer cirrus clouds over the Tibetan Plateau”

This concise paper describes the feature of the summer cirrus clouds over the Tibetan plateau, particularly the cirrus top heights. Three potential formation mechanisms which determine the cirrus top height over the Tibetan Plateau have been proposed and evidence has been discussed. While I wonder if there are other potential mechanisms which also paly a role (I think there might be), this study provides valuable information and results regarding the characteristics and formation of cirrus clouds over Tibetan Plateau. Thus, I would recommend its consideration for publication after some minor changes.
Most references used in this study are those before 2013, some recent studies are worthy to review and cite.
Line 17-25, Regarding the abstract, a little more information about the relative importance of the three mechanisms at different locations/conditions would be helpful.
Line 29-32, You may rephrase this sentence a little bit.
Line 41-43, Two other recent references could be also cited here, which are Yang et al. (202, doi: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2020.104927) and Zhao et al. (2019, DOI:10.1002/joc.5975). They found that associated with the topographic effects and the transport of moisture air, the cirrus clouds are found more from March to May.
Line 56-60, when we talk about the occurrence, characteristics and potential causes form ground-based observations, we usually took use of radar and lidar observations, such as Zhao et al. (2016, http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-16-0038.1) for ice clouds and (2017, doi: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2017.02.002) for liquid clouds over the Tibetan Plateau. However, we should note that when using lidar observations, it is rare to examine them based on top height due to the attenuation of lidar signals, unless the clouds are thin without any other clouds below. Actually, with strong attenuation ability, radar (such as Zhao et al., 2016) can provide the characteristics (temporal and spatial distribution) of ice clouds over the Tibetan Plateau.
Line 75-76, we know that the third Tibetan Plateau Atmospheric Experiment was carried out in 2014 and 2015, it might be valuable and interesting to compare the findings from Calipso with that from ground-based remote sensing observations.
Another question, Calipso observation only occurs at 1:30 PM in a 16-day cycle, how could this represent the characteristics of cirrus for a day. As Wang and Zhao (2017, doi:10.1002/2016JD025954) indicated, even for MODIS which pass two times a day, the representation time error due to single time observation could be large when considering daily average or even monthly average.
Line 93, Using superscript for Wm-2
Line 117, large number of
Line 125-126, actually, the heat pump effect could be further enhanced by the absorption of solar radiation by transported absorbing aerosols such as black carbon and dust, as indicated by zhao et al. (2020, https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwz184).
Line 128-129, I am not sure if it is possible to get the radiation balance from CERES. If it is, you may check the consistency between CERES observations and ERA5.
Line 134, “Fig. 3b and Fig. 3c show the …”
Line 140-141, is this a typo “with terrain height larger than 4500 km”?
Line 144, you may rephrase this sentence to make it more clear “Still, the weak vertical motion in the upper layers prohibits the vertical growth of cirrus”.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (20 Jul 2020) by Wenshou Tian

AR by Qianshan He on behalf of the Authors (30 Jul 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (09 Aug 2020) by Wenshou Tian

AR by Qianshan He on behalf of the Authors (20 Aug 2020) Manuscript

Short summary

In this work, we make the three main contributions. (1) We reveal the remarkable differences in the geographical distributions of cirrus over the Tibetan Plateau regarding the cloud top height. (2) The orography, gravity wave, and deep convection determine the formation of cirrus with a cloud top below 9, at 9–12, and above 12 km, respectively. (3) It is the first time the contributions of the Tibetan Plateau to the presence of cirrus on a regional scale are discussed.