The presented study have aim to reveal the impact of plume of a desert dust on temperature and thermal comfort during specific few-day meteorological event by model tools. Although the topic could be interesting, the level of manuscript is rather as report. There is nearly no discussion of results, no comparison with other similar studies, even it they surely exist, some figures are superfluous but some of them unclear. There is also lot of excessive statements, which are not well supported by results. The conclusion is wrongly written. The specific major and other comments are listed below. In the current state, the manuscript is not suitable to be published as a research article, it must be significantly improved or submitted again.

Specific major comments:

1/ Description of model – the inclusion of aerosols in the model, described not very clearly in two distinct paragraphs, does not introduce some important notes. It is not clear, if aerosol arrays are modified by the model or only driven by CAMS data. Also, it is not written how model works with aerosols, if includes aerosol-radiation feedback (or first aerosol effect) only, or if aerosols impact clouds and precipitation (second aerosol effect) due to micro-physics scheme in the model and how. Finally, starting describing of experimental setup and C0 simulation is problematic, because aerosol set to zero is non-realistic situation (without cloud and precipitation formation), so first rather describe model (including used aerosol climatology) and the experimental setup later. All mentioned features should be considered as well as all results commented with regard to those features in discussion.

2/ Discussion section – discussion of results is missing, there is no discussion section, but the results section has only few explanation of achieved results and comparisons with other previous studies in different aspects. Also, general differences between urban and rural temperature daily cycle should be taken into consideration.

3/ Dividing of results into sun and shaded is not introduced, defined and motivated in methodology section and it is unclear how it is selected from model simulations.

Other comments and technical correction:

Line 23: I don‘t think that unit format W/m2 is preferable by ACP, moreover in italics. Also hyphen instead of dash and two near braces don’t look well.

Line 53–61: The research gap and also aim of the study would be better explained.

Line 77–78: The sentence have no sense – no aerosols before 17 June?

L 79–83: It would be appropriate to write, why to choose those models for a comparison. E.g. are they operational system for air-quality predictions through Europe with publicly available results?

L 89: The word part-ly divided.

Fig. 3 caption: The last sentence seems to be describing rather Fig. 2

L 102: Why the line is terminated, when model description continues?

L 122: 0.75 degree in lon/lat is not directly 80 km, please improve the sentence.

L 178–179: The statement is excessive, once there are missing data about midnight 17/18 June.

L 202: I would not say ‘slightly’ – the differences between simulated and observed direct / diffusive radiation are significant.

L 208 and 209: The hyphen is not a minus.

L 221–223: The sentence is excessive, not clear and the final suggestion not well documented

L 242–244: The statement is also not well supported by results.

L 255–257: It is better to link to figures than to sections

L 260: Why simulation C2 is not considered?

Fig. 11 + 12: Why there are missing data in plots, when it comes from model simulations?

L 281–283: You should distinguish between relative and absolute humidity. The equation 1 and also Fig. 12 include the relative, which could be affected by temperature only, but then you describe absolute humidity, also no clear to what refers ‘moister boundary layer’.

L 286–288: I don’t understand the meaning of the sentences.

Fig. 13: It is not clear what difference is shown and the reason why it is shown. If it is UTCI offset, I am not sure about relevance of such evaluation, moreover only in shade.

Fig. 14B: The word each has lost.

L 338–341: The sentence is not logical, because AOD is directly connected with radiation impact on the specific wavelength, not with aerosol size.

Conclusion, second paragraph: It seems as discussion section, but statements are often out of paper topic.

The manuscript entitled “Numerical study of dust plume impact on urban thermal comfort” is focused on analysis of impact of short-term dust episode on air temperature and thermal comfort. This short-term episode analysed was observed in June of 2022 in the Paris region of France. This study utilises Meso-NH model for simulations runs without and with aerosols compared against observation data.

The studied topic is of interest for research community, but the original manuscript is poorly written.

The section “Material and method” is missing description/ explanation on how physics core of the MesoNH model “handles” aerosols vs. radiation vs. clouds vs. precipitation.

The results are partially presented (note, in case “not shown”, add such results as supplementary material), but the discussions of results obtained are very limited. In case of keeping the same structure of the manuscript, rename section “Results” as “Results and Discussions”.

There are too many places in the manuscript where clarifications for written text are required. Frequently, the acronyms are introduced, but these are not declared in full. There are excessive statements used, but these are not well supported by presented results. It would be preferably (where it is applicable) to use the past tense instead of the present tense for completed research. (see detailed comments for each figure in “Other comments”).

The illustrations/figures in the manuscript are not easily readable, some are difficult to interpret even at simple visual inspection, the caption-text to figures should be self-explanatory and clearly written (see detailed comments for each figure in “Other comments”).

In this form the manuscript is not suitable to be published in the journal as research article. Note, that significant re-writing / improvements of the original manuscript are required, and then, it can be re-submitted again to this or another suitable science journal. A native speaker for proof-reading might be recommended.

Major comments:

(1) Section “Material and method” should have included detailed description/ explanation on how physics core of the MesoNH model “handles” aerosols vs. radiation vs. clouds vs. precipitation.

(2) Section “Results” (or “Results and Discussions”) should also include more in details elaborated discussions and explanations on obtained results in this particular study vs. other studies.

(3) Section “Conclusions” should be re-written completely, including a short sum-up of the study done, findings of key importance and of secondary importance, with more elaborated future work/directions and applicability of results.

(4) It is unclear, if the Meso-NH output (or post-processed output from performed simulations) available/ stored somewhere. Only information about observation data is available.

Other comments:

Section: Abstract

L1: unify throughout the text of the manuscript: “heatwave” vs. “heat wave”

L10: unify throughout the text of the manuscript: “HH:MM UTC” (for example, 16:00) vs “HH” (16 UTC); is the using of MM (00) is really needed in this study?

L11: unify throughout the text of the manuscript: “relative air humidity” vs. “relative humidity” (as meteorological variable)

Section: Introduction

L17: clarify: “an other”?

L23, L24, etc.: unify throughout the text of the manuscript: units (for example, W/m2) in one style

L24: replace: from “Barcelona” to “Barcelona (Spain)”

L33: clarify: “observational estimates” vs. “observed estimates”?

L34: clarify: “dust was located” vs. “dust was observed/distributed”?

L36: replace: from “Wang et al. (2022) emphasizes that” to “Wang et al. (2022) emphasized that”

L45: replace: from “Thus the trend” to “Thus, the trend”

L46: replace: from “Zhao et al. (2019) have investigated” to “Zhao et al. (2019) investigated”

L48: replace: from “green house gases” to “greenhouse gases”

L50: clarify: “more frequent (12 more per year)”, rewrite more clearly

L50-51: reformulate/rewrite part: “These changes will also be further aggravated by aerosol reductions,”

L53: reformulate/rewrite part: “Although there is a quite dense literature”

L54: clarify: “most of them are performed”, them? Or “most of studies were performed”?

Section: Material and method

Section: 2.1 Meteorological overview

The is section should be rewritten in the past tense.

L64 vs L70 vs 73: clarify and unify: “heatwave period” vs “episode” vs “heatwave episode”

L65: clarify: “The temperature” vs “The air temperature”?

L67: clarify: “from North Africa” vs “Northern Africa”?

L71: clarify: “leading to important rainfall” – what does it mean? heavy rainfall?

Figure 1: What is the source of these plot son Figure 1? Are these replotted or extracted as figures-plots and combined on one figure? Why the colorbar has such scale with strange-looking values? Where is the zero-value? Vertical title for colorbar is missing text as “air temperature”; at the end of caption-text to figure replace from “geopotential height.” to “geopotential height, respectively.”

L75: Acronym was introduced, but was not declared: “CAMS”  vs “Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS)”; same should be done throughout the text of the manuscript for all first time introduced acronyms; see further lines L80 for SILAM, L81 - ZAMG-WRF-CHEM, L82 – MULTI-MODEL, L – 82 CAMS-IFS, etc.

Figure 2: in the caption-text for figure replace: from “WMO Barcelona Dust Regional Center” to “World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Barcelona Dust Regional Center”

L89: clarify/correct: “part ly”?

L90: clarify: “spatial resolution” vs “spatial resolution differences”?

L90: clarify: “to 0.75° for CAMS” vs “to 0.75° for CAMS-IFS”?

Figure 3: the vertical and horizontal ticks/lines are missing for horizontal axis as well as for vertical axis; it is not easy/ complicated for reader to work with such figure and extract values; tick-marks should be added; caption-text to figure: clarify: “The choice of the models was performed in order to illustrate the variability” vs “The used models illustrate the variability”?

What does it (see text) mean on figure 3? “Dust data and/or images were adapted from the WMO Barcelona Dust Regional Center and the partners of the Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System (SDS-WAS) for Northern Africa, the Middle East and Europe”. Is it a part of the plotted figure, or it should be moved to the text of the manuscript?

Section 2.2: Model and Numerical experiments

L92: clarify: “non-hydrostatic research atmospheric model Meso-NH” vs. “Mesoscale Non-Hydrostatic model (Meso-NH)”?

L103: clarify: “Surface physics is handled by the last version of SURFEX (V9.0)”; do you refer to to Surfex v9.0.0, Latest update : 5 Sep 2022, or something else?

In the section 2.2 there are many acronyms introduced from the start, but these are not declared at all; should be done accordingly; fx. L104 – ECOCLIMAP, L105 – TEB, L130 – AROME, etc.

L108: clarify: “Soil-Biosphere-Atmosphere interaction land surface model (Noilhan and Planton, 1989, ISBA)” vs. “Interaction-Soil-Biosphere-Atmosphere (ISBA) land surface scheme (Noilhan and Planton, 1989)”

L113: clarify: “dusts (Fig. 3)” vs “dust (Fig. 3)”

L116: clarify: acronym “PANAME-Urban framework” vs. “PAris region urbaN Atmospheric observations and models for Multidisciplinary rEsearch (PANAME-Urban) framework”

L117: replace: from “as temperature” to “air temperature”

L118: replace: from “approximately 17,500 m” to “approximately 17500 m”

L121: clarify/ recalculate: “(80 km by 80 km)”? 1 degree of latitude near Paris is about 111 km & 1 degree of longitude is about 73 km

L125-127: your text: “Due to the short period of simulation and the fact that the aerosols are outside of the boundary layer, the modification of the aerosols content by deposition, aggregation or chemical reaction is not simulated.” How many days of spin-up were used in Meso-NH simulations for 4-days of C0, C1, C2? Make more clear justification (dust episode is considered in simulation) on ignoring deposition (dry and wet)? Why is dust considered here as “passive” aerosol?

L127 (+L174, +L188): clarify/ rename/ rewrite: “non-desertic” – to what do you refer?

Section 2.3: Observation network

L133: clarify: “presented” vs. “described”

Figure 4: is heavily overloaded with multiple details on maps; needs to be simplified to keep only the needed information (used/referenced in the text of the manuscript)

L136, L138: acronyms are introduced but not declared: AERONET, RADOME

L139: clarify: “Two of them” vs. “Two of these”?

L142-143: “the World Meteorological Organization” was already declared above & hence, only acronym can be used “WMO”

L144: clarify: “Finding sites that” vs “Finding stations that”?

L150: clarify: “impossible” vs “complicated”?

L151-152: is it necessary to use ‘rural’ (with 20% of surface covered by urban features) and ‘urban’ (with 100%) instead of words: rural and urban? What is about the suburban stations (between 20 and 80%?; clarify)?

Section 3. Results

Use unified words in writing “Sect. #” or “section #” throughout the text of the manuscript

L161: replace: from “observations on” to “observations in”

L166: clarify: “agree well” vs “agree relatively well”; provide short  statistical summary on corrections (calculate correlation coefficients and estimate statistical significance) between observed and modelled data, which are shown on figure 5.

L167: replace: from “of 16 June2 to “of 16 June 2022”

L170: replace: from “the location of” to “the locations of”; check correct usage of singular vs plural throughout the text of the manuscript

L177: clarify: “by the low resolution of the initial field” vs. “by the low horizontal? resolution (add value  here) of the initial field”

L179: clarify: “surface variables” vs. “meteorological variables” or “thermal comfort related variables”?

Figure 5: Caption-text needs clarification; Are these plots show the time-series of AOD? In this case caption-text to be as “Time-series of aerosol optical depth observed …“; re-draw 4 plots on figure with max at vertical axis corresponding to 0.8 & change ticks-intervals on vertical axis on AOD from 0.2 to 0.1; the observations are plotted with a light orange/yellowish colour, and it is difficult (if printed on paper – impossible) for reader to see/ interpret such data; replot curve with observations, for example, with green-colour

Section 3.2: Radiation

Preferably, use the past tense.

L184-185: Why the South-West, Western, Eastern are written in capital letters? (same for caption-text of Figure 6) instead of south-west, western, eastern; unify

Figure 6: Caption-text uses words “global downward solar radiation”, but vertical axis has title as “Global solar radiation” and text of the manuscript (L196 + in Table 1) as well as “global radiation” (L191, L192); should be unified – preferably as “global solar radiation”; clarify: “observation line” vs. “observation curve”?

L186: clarify: “where there is” vs. “when there is”?

L188: clarify/ rewrite: What does mean “non-desertic AOD”? Does it exist in atmospheric sciences?

L193: replace: “nine in situ AWS” to “nine in-situ AWS”

Figure 7: unify caption-text for plotted titles of vertical axes as well as use the same terminology/wording in the text of the manuscript, otherwise it looks very messy; replace: from “by the line” to “by the curve”

L206: clarify: “Tab. 1)” vs “, as seen in Tab. 1)”?

L208: Where the “downward infrared radiation is minor” was calculated; to which exactly figure it is referenced?

L209: clarify: “makes these long-wave impacts” vs. “makes these impacts of LW”?

Section: 3.3. Air temperature

Section: 3.3.1. Near ground air temperature

L212: exclude ‘ ‘ for words rural and urban

L214: clarify: “very well” vs “relatively well”; do you have calculated correlations? provide a short sumup statistics on calculated correlation coefficients

L214-217&L222-223: Why degrees K are used in text of the manuscript, but degrees C on Figure 8?; all units should be unified throughout the text of the manuscript

L215: clarify: “decreases in the afternoon for all simulations” vs “decreases from HH? UTC until HH? UTC for all simulations”?

L216: clarify: “the night-time simulated air temperature” vs. “the night-time (from HH? UTC until HH? UTC) simulated air temperature”; night-time as a time from sunset to sunrise; which exactly UTC hours (for Paris urban area)?

Figure 8: Caption-text: what do you mean by “absolute air temperature”? (used only twice in the caption-text); you refer here to 18 stations as rural, but you declared early the 17 rural stations + 1 urban; is the median value correctly calculated? clarify/or recalculate/ and modify results of analysis; replace: from “the line and” to “the curve and”

L219: clarify: “distinction between simulations” vs “differences between simulations”?

L221: clarify: “throughout the simulation period” vs “for the simulation period”?

Section: 3.3.2 Upper atmosphere air temperature

L229: is it really necessary? to use “:00” for UTC terms included in the text of the manuscript

L234: clarify: “simulated profiles of temperature are similar and very good.” vs “simulated vertical profiles of temperature are very similar and in good agreement with observations.”

L235-L247: Paragraph refers to description/ analysis of Figure 9, but written text is confusing/ misleading/ messy, referencing to exact abcd-subplots of Figure 9 is not given/ provided. Some statements are vague: “huge development“ (rapid?), “boundary layer extend” (extent?), “strong inversion” (place arrows on plots to show inversion layers depth), “too high extension” (depth? or top of boundary layer?), “largest disagreement” (where the values? compared with other plots at other UTC terms). The paragraph needs to be re-written more clearly.

Figure 9: Caption text for each figure should be a self-explanatory written text! For example: Figure 9. Vertical profile of the potential air temperature simulated by the Meso-NH model at the Jussieu station and observed by a radiosonde on 18 June at (a) 00, (b) 12, (c) 16 and (d) 20 UTC terms. Is it necessary to use for UTC terms the additional “:00”? or these can be omitted? Using simultaneously the red and pink colours on the plots for lines and curves complicates the inspection/ interpretation/ analysis. Preferably, use another colour, for example – green (instead of pink).

The term “potential air temperature” is used. Or it is just an air temperature? It is very confusing; make clear declaration and how it was calculated. Is it the one called as “theta” and calculated in deg K? and then, you converted to deg C?

L248: clarify: “vertical structure of the atmosphere” or “vertical structure of the boundary layer”?

L249: clarify: “observed by the Jussieu station ceilometer” vs. “observed by ceilometer at the Jussieu station”

L251: clarify: “during the two days with significant dust plume (17 and 18 June)” vs. “during the two days (17 and 18 June) with significant dust plume”

L252: clarify: “compared to the simulation without dust” vs. “compared to C0”

Figure 10: Do you mean? “Time-series of vertical variation of the potential air temperature difference between the simulations C1 and C0 at the Jussieu station” Is it necessary to use “:00” on the figure? or simply 00, 12, 00, 12, etc. for each date

Section 3.4: Thermal comfort

L254: clarify: “is now being investigated” vs. “was investigated in this study”?

L254-255: clarify: “Previous sections showed … (Sect. 3.2)” vs. “Sections 3.2 showed …”

L257: replace: from “and 3.3.2 respectively” to “and 3.3.2, respectively”

L260: replace: from “is calculated” to “was calculated”

L263: units for listed meteorological variables are missing; for example, air temperature in degree C; and should be all included; air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed - at which level above the ground?

L264: clarify: “can be seen” vs “can be calculated”?

L266:  clarify: “show the UTCI on 18 June simulated by C1” vs Did you simulate UTCI? Or did you calculate UTCI using Eq.(1) based on results from the C1 simulations; confusing/ reformulate/ write clearly

L266: define clearly for readers the meaning of “in the sun” and “in the shade”

L267: clarify: “The results are averaged from 15:00 to 17:00 UTC.” vs “The results are averaged for time period from 15 to 17 UTC.”?

L268: clarify: “large number of people in France usually move from their workplace to their home” vs. Do you mean at during 15-17 UTC (or = 15-17 pm of local time) people are usually travelling from work to home? rewrite more clearly; fx. “starting to move”? Time should be used in unified units – coordinated universal time (UTC), or local standard time (LST), or American AM and PM, but not as s mixture of everything in the manuscript

L268: clarify: “during this time slot.” vs “during this time period”?

L270: replace: from “results in” to “resulted in”

L273: it would be preferably to use the past tense instead of the present for completed research you have done; “dust aerosols decreases” vs “dust aerosols decreased” & similarly through the text of the manuscript, where it is applicable

Figure 11: Vertical and horizontal axes on each plot should have the values of coordinates plotted; without referencing to coordinates it is complex to interpret shown data. The caption-text is not self-explanatory; should be re-written (see comments for L266 and L267)

L274: clarify: “contribution of this variable” vs “contribution of this temperature”?

L275: clarify: “Then the results are more contrasted:” vs “In this case the results are more contrasted:”?

L275-275: clarify: “while it has a null or positive impact (up to 1.5°C) everywhere in the shade (Fig. 12b)”; “null” – do you mean negligible (impact)? Value of 1.5? the max shown on does not show dark-red coloured place on the plot; confusing/ rewrite/ reformulate

Figure 12: Vertical and horizontal axes on each plot should have the values of coordinates plotted; Sub-plots “c”&”d”- clarify “mean temperature radiant” vs “mean radiant temperature”, replot names of vertical axes; Sub-plot “f” - clarify “air humidity” vs “relative humidity”, replot vertical axis. Caption-text should be self-explanatory; Fx. “Difference between Meso-NH C1 and C0 simulations for the UTCI offset (a) in sun and (b) in shade, mean radiant temperature (c) in sun and (d) in shade, (e) wind speed, and (f) relative humidity.”

L283: clarify: unify from “at 4 pm” and “at 10 am”; 16 UTC? and “10 UTC”? time should be used in unified units - UTCs, of local standard time, or American AM and PM, but not a mixture of everything.

L284: replace: from “are chosen” to “were chosen”

L285-285: clarify: “Its environment is composed of compact mid-rise buildings (Local Climate Zone (LCZ) type 2 - Stewart and Oke (2012)).” vs. “According to Stewart and Oke (2012), its environment includes compact mid-rise buildings (Local Climate Zone, LCZ, type 2).”

L287-288: clarify: “definition of each site is given using aggregated spatial information using the 1.2 km resolution grid cells” vs. “definition of each station is given based on aggregated spatial information from 1.2 km resolution grid cells”.

Figure 13: clarify: text vs. legend “sparse buildings” + “compact mid-rise buildings” vs “Sparsely built” + “Compact  mid-rise”; unify and replot; change from “for two sites for” to “for two stations for”; clarify on caption-text to figure

L298: clarify: “in an almost no effect” vs “in negligible effect”

L298-300: rewrite 3-lines sentence more clearly

L301-302: “i” symbol is declared but not used; modify from “is performed for Ta,“ to “is performed for i Ta,”.

L311: clarify: “Palaiseau site” vs “Palaiseau station”?

L313: preferably use term “relative humidity” instead of “relative air humidity” everywhere throughout the text of the manuscript

L318: clarify: “with greater importance” vs. “with larger contribution”?

L319: clarify: “all variable contributions to” vs. “contributions of all variables to”?

L319: clarify: “urban and suburban cases” vs. “urban and suburban stations”?

Figure 14: on plot “b”, the y-axis title has missing fragment in text, replot; Caption-text, rewrite; Fx. “Contribution of all and each meteorological variables and cross-terms to the effect of aerosols on the UTCI on 18 June at (a) 10 UTC and (b) 16 UTC.”

1. Conclusions

Use past tense in this section.

L324: clarify: “case of strong heatwave over the Paris region.” vs. “case of strong heatwave reached the Paris region from 15 to 19 June 2022.”

L325: clarify: from “Simulations without and with dust aerosols” vs “The Meso-NH model simulations without aerosols (C0), with dust aerosols (C1), and with CAMS’s dust aerosols (C2)”?

L326-327: clarify: “The simulations perform correctly” vs “The simulations performed relatively well” & “except the afternoon of the last day” vs “the afternoon of the last day (18 June 2022)”

L328: replace: from “decrease of the AOD” to “decrease of the aerosol optical depth”

L336: clarify: “of other types of aerosols” – which other types?

L339: replace: from “,both closer to the Sahara desert.” to “(both cities are closer situated to the Sahara desert).”

Section: Data availability

Only observation data are mentioned here. What is about availability of output (or post-processed output) from the mentioned model simulations (C01, C1, C2)?

Section: Acknowledgements

Only financial support and discussions are acknowledged. What is about performed Meso-NH model simulations: at which computing center/cluster, at which supercomputer/ computer (its architecture), used computing resources, technical advice/assistance, etc.? Have you used initial/ boundary conditions to perform the model runs, from where (? which archive) these ICs/BCs were extracted, what is about data assimilation (which observation data for meteorology were assimilated) in the model runs?

Section: References

References to papers are written in different styles. Double-check all references. Use the style of this journal. Multiple papers in this section are missing doi’s, although these are available by simply searching in the internet.