Interactive comment on “3-D tomographic observations of Rossby wave breaking over the Northern Atlantic during the WISE aircraft campaign in 2017”

3-D tomographic observations of Rossby wave breaking over the Northern Atlantic during the WISE aircraft 2017. This is a very nice paper that does a thorough job of capitalizing on information from a state-of-the art measurement system (instrument and retrieval algorithms) to provide insights into ﬁne scale processes at work in the extratropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. The work is solid and well described, the data and models support the conclusions reached, the work is a welcome addition to the body of knowledge,

and the standard of the writing and figures are both excellent. I really have no "large scale" suggestions for improvements to make about the paper, and I'm very happy to recommend that it be ultimately accepted, pending some very minor clarifications and suggestions detailed below. I look forward to seeing this paper in press.

--Minor comments
As I say, all these are minor suggestions for improved wording, clarity, clarification, etc.
Line 27: "from +the+ troposphere" Line 85: I'm not sure "tomography images" is really the right word. Firstly, I'd suggest "tomographic" rather than "tomography". But regarding "images", those unfamiliar with retrievals might confuse them with the Level-1 radiance "images" (which really are "images", in the traditional 2-D sense of the word). "Fields" is an alternative, but I'm it's not quite right either, I recognize. Others might be "depictions", "representations", but I'm not sold on them either. Anyway, something to ponder.
Line 90: At face value, the discussion here seems to be talking about "high vertical resolution" for the radiances, but I think you mean it to apply also to the retrieved state, correct? It might be good to add a few words to clarify that "...not only for the measured radiances, but also, ultimately for the retrieved atmospheric states corresponding to those measured radiances".
Line 112: Is the temperature also "advected"? If so, how, as some kind of tracer? Is that valid meteorologically speaking?

Interactive comment
Printer-friendly version Discussion paper Figure 1: I found the yellow hard to spot, it's more of a lime green on my printer.
Line 162: "In the case of cloud presence..." -> "In cases where clouds are present, atmospheric properties can only be retrieved in the regions above the cloud tops".
Line 164 (and 162 before the above edit): "data" is plural (it's the plural of "datum"). So "is" -> "are". There may be other places where this needs to be fixed, I didn't check exhaustively.
Line 168: If you're including a citation for ozone (line above) why not one for HNO3 also, for symmetry. Lines 199/200: "The air found near...3 days at least". Are we supposed to be able to see that from examination of Figure 3? If so, it wasn't clear to me, so perhaps more hand-holding is required.
Line 201: Could/should the word "subsequently" be inserted right before "transported" (final word in this line). If that's not correct, then that means I haven't understood the discussion properly, and perhaps some clearer discussion is needed.   and (c) are discussed in reverse order. Consider discussing (a) and swapping the order of the panels so that they discussion and figure orders agree.
Line 273/274: "Panel c) shows the distribution of the potential temperatures at which the observed air parcels entered the stratosphere (maximum..." Line 287/288: "Owing to the similarity of their source and sink regions, HNO3 and O3 typically display a very compact relationship within the stratosphere. Line 304: Add "is" after "lifetime" Line 401: "Large value+s+ of this term...". I think you should make it clear that (a) "this term" is J(x), correct, and also that (b) you mean large values after the iteration has converged, right?