Concerted measurements of lipids in seawater and on submicrometer aerosol particles at the Cabo Verde islands: biogenic sources, selective transfer and high enrichments

Triesch, Nadja; van Pinxteren, Manuela; Frka, Sanja; Stolle, Christian; Spranger, Tobias; Hoffmann, Erik Hans; Gong, Xianda; Wex, Heike; Schulz-Bull, Detlef; Gašparović, Blaženka; Herrmann, Hartmut

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4267-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4267-2021

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

Special issue:

Marine organic matter: from biological production in the ocean...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4267-2021

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

Articles | Volume 21, issue 6

Research article

|

22 Mar 2021

Research article |

| 22 Mar 2021

Concerted measurements of lipids in seawater and on submicrometer aerosol particles at the Cabo Verde islands: biogenic sources, selective transfer and high enrichments

Nadja Triesch, Manuela van Pinxteren, Sanja Frka, Christian Stolle, Tobias Spranger, Erik Hans Hoffmann, Xianda Gong, Heike Wex, Detlef Schulz-Bull, Blaženka Gašparović, and Hartmut Herrmann

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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: 'acp-2020-432', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Oct 2020
- AC1: 'Author's response_ACP-2020-432-Referee 1', Hartmut Herrmann, 10 Dec 2020
RC2: 'Anonymous Referee #2', Anonymous Referee #2, 20 Oct 2020
- AC2: 'Author's response_ACP-2020-432-Referee 2', Hartmut Herrmann, 10 Dec 2020

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Hartmut Herrmann on behalf of the Authors (10 Dec 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (01 Jan 2021) by Kimitaka Kawamura

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (15 Jan 2021)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (24 Jan 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Comments on the revised version of the work by Triesch et al., entitled “Concerted measurements of lipids in seawater and on submicron aerosol particles at the Cape Verde Islands: biogenic sources, selective transfer and high enrichments”
In the amended version of this work, I think that the Authors have done a good job to accomplish the comments/requests raised in the first round of review by two anonymous reviewers.
I have few additional comments that the Authors should consider to improve their work for publication.
1. The text would benefit from a thorough revision by a native English speaker, to correct the syntax and phrasing of some sentences, make some of them more clear and sounding, check verb tenses (past or present? This should be more consistent throughout the text), correct some typos and avoid some improper/odd expressions.
2. Some doubts about statistics. I missed what was used as a test to assess significant differences in the comparisons among samples. This should be stated in the “2.2.5 Statistical analysis” section. Moreover, please avoid/correct too general expressions related to the results of the statistical tests performed.
Here are only some examples from the text, but this aspect should be corrected throughout the text:
-“corresponds well”, please be more specific
-“becomes lower”, quantitatively? Is it significant? (p value?)
-“increases”, quantitatively? Is it significant ? (p value?)
-“showed not only a much lower concentration but also much less pronounced variance”, please be more specific.. Is it significant? What do the Authors mean with “variance”? Did they perform a test based on the confidence intervals of different groups of samples?
-“was always higher […], with one exception […]”, this is incorrect phrasing
-“strong” or “strongly” or similar, please check all the times this word is (mis)used, and use a more sounding statistical/scientific wording
-“weak relation”, is it significant or not? No sense to distinguish between stronger or weaker significance.
“somewhat more resistant to degradation” could the Authors be more “quantitative”?
“For aerosol, however, the high enrichment of total lipids corresponds well with the consideration of their high surface activity” this is an example of sentence, which is a bit odd and not clear in terms of statistical sense. Especially in the abstract and conclusions, the Authors should take particular care to use more sounding/scientific expressions.
3. Regarding the comment by Rev#1: “R#1-8b) I don’t know if it makes sense, but would it be possible to estimate an EFaer based on ULW properties instead of SML components?”. The Authors’ reply provides interesting information, but the Authors’ conclusion is that this point raised by Rev#1 “does not provide any new insights […] and therefore we would prefer not to elaborate on this in the manuscript.” Actually, I encourage the Authors to consider this point in the manuscript, as obtaining similar EFaer values if using ULW or SML values is not obvious and discussion about this could be deepened.
4. Figures. These could be improved in their graphical outputs (more consistent style - Avoid grey/unuseful lines - Use a heavier stroke to define bar/graph/axes contours – larger color legends – overall higher file resolution). Figure 6 might be a bit “poor” in information. This might be joined/enriched with one of the figures provided in the supplementary file (by transferring that in the main text). Or, just put Figure 6 in the supplementary file as well.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (25 Jan 2021) by Kimitaka Kawamura

AR by Hartmut Herrmann on behalf of the Authors (03 Feb 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (04 Feb 2021) by Kimitaka Kawamura

AR by Hartmut Herrmann on behalf of the Authors (04 Feb 2021) Manuscript

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Short summary

To investigate the source of lipids and their representatives in the marine atmosphere, concerted measurements of seawater and submicrometer aerosol particle sampling were carried out on the Cabo Verde islands. This field study describes the biogenic sources of lipids, their selective transfer from the ocean into the atmosphere and their enrichment as part of organic matter. A strong enrichment of the studied representatives of the lipid classes on submicrometer aerosol particles was observed.