Satellite soil moisture data assimilation impacts on modeling weather variables and ozone in the southeastern US – Part 1: An overview

Huang, Min; Crawford, James H.; DiGangi, Joshua P.; Carmichael, Gregory R.; Bowman, Kevin W.; Kumar, Sujay V.; Zhan, Xiwu

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11013-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 14

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11013-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11013-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 14

Research article

|

21 Jul 2021

Research article |

| 21 Jul 2021

Satellite soil moisture data assimilation impacts on modeling weather variables and ozone in the southeastern US – Part 1: An overview

Min Huang, James H. Crawford, Joshua P. DiGangi, Gregory R. Carmichael, Kevin W. Bowman, Sujay V. Kumar, and Xiwu Zhan

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Final revised paper (published on 21 Jul 2021)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 07 Aug 2020)
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: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #2, 18 Sep 2020
RC2: 'Satellite soil moisture data assimilation impacts on modeling weather and ozone in the southeastern US – part I', Anonymous Referee #1, 19 Oct 2020
AC1: 'Author response to RC1 and RC2', Min Huang, 04 Jan 2021

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Min Huang on behalf of the Authors (05 Jan 2021) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (06 Jan 2021) by Rolf Müller

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (23 Jan 2021)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (04 Feb 2021)

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (07 Feb 2021) by Rolf Müller

AR by Min Huang on behalf of the Authors (15 Mar 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (16 Mar 2021) by Rolf Müller

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (06 Apr 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors have made changes to the manuscript to address the comments of both reviewers, although these are not particularly convincing. The paper still suffers from the key problem that I identified in my original review: that it is descriptive rather than analytic. It is a very competent report of the research performed, but it remains short on the type of new insight needed for a useful scientific paper. There is a lot of explanation and justification of model performance, but it is not clear what we learn from this. The topic is certainly of interest to the readership of ACP, and worthy of publication, but the reader is made to work hard to extract the key messages of the study.

I requested a clear, overarching conclusion for the reader to take away. The response is a lengthy sentence in the abstract that lists uncertainties but provides little useful information to highlight the take-home messages. There are minor adjustments to detail in the conclusions, but these provide no overview of the bigger picture that might highlight the wider value of the study. This still needs to be resolved.

The final sentence of the abstract advertises future work, but this appears to underscore the rather inconclusive nature of this study, which needs to stand on its own.

The descriptions in the text would still benefit from some polishing to make them clearer and thus more accessible to the reader. For example, on lines 287-8, the synoptic conditions and drought conditions "can be closely linked to" regional O3 variability. I assume the intended meaning here is "partly explain"? There are a number of places like this where some relationship is identified but where the direction or magnitude of the relationship isn't clear.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (15 Apr 2021)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (23 Apr 2021) by Rolf Müller

AR by Min Huang on behalf of the Authors (27 Apr 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (11 May 2021) by Rolf Müller

AR by Min Huang on behalf of the Authors (18 May 2021)

Short summary

This study evaluates the impact of satellite soil moisture data assimilation on modeled weather and ozone fields at various altitudes above the southeastern US during the summer. It emphasizes the importance of soil moisture in the understanding of surface ozone pollution and upper tropospheric chemistry, as well as air pollutants’ source–receptor relationships between the US and its downwind areas.