Modeling and sensitivity analysis of transport and deposition of radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident

Hu, X.; Li, D.; Huang, H.; Shen, S.; Bou-Zeid, E.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-11065-2014

Articles | Volume 14, issue 20

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-11065-2014

© Author(s) 2014. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-11065-2014

© Author(s) 2014. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 14, issue 20

Research article

|

22 Oct 2014

Research article |

| 22 Oct 2014

Modeling and sensitivity analysis of transport and deposition of radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident

X. Hu, D. Li, H. Huang, S. Shen, and E. Bou-Zeid

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Final revised paper (published on 22 Oct 2014)
Preprint (discussion started on 23 Jan 2014)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC C436: 'Referee comments included in the attachment', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Mar 2014
- AC C2652: 'Answer of the reviewer’s questions (RC C436)', Xiaofeng Hu, 23 May 2014
RC C565: 'Referee comment acp-2013-910', Anonymous Referee #2, 20 Mar 2014
- AC C2653: 'Answer of the reviewer’s questions (RC C565)', Xiaofeng Hu, 23 May 2014

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Xiaofeng Hu on behalf of the Authors (23 May 2014) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (26 Jul 2014) by Athanasios Nenes

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (11 Aug 2014)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (14 Aug 2014)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

General Comments:

The manuscript is greatly improved after these revisions. The authors have made successful effort to address the reviewers’ comments and concerns. There is now a clear presentation of the paper’s goals. Further, the presentation of the results and analysis satisfactorily address these goals. I have only the following minor suggestions for revisions and technical corrections at this time.

Specific Comments:

1) Abstract, L24: The wording seems awkward. Would ‘ the influence of the characteristics of the emission source …….. on the simulated transport and deposition’ be a better wording?

2) Abstract, L37 and L40: Could the word ‘variations’ be replaced by AAD?

3) P4L88: By total deposition – do you mean globally or within a certain domain? Does the Korsakossok et al. (2013) study pertain to a certain domain for the 137Cs total deposition values cited? Also does the present study give the total deposition for the domain and time period considered for this work?

4) P12L284: What are the dimensions of the deposition rate in Eq. 17. Is this dimensionless? If so, this is a rate or a removal fraction? Also is this applied for scavenging both in and below clouds?

5) P13L301: Please specify if this is applied in clouds or below clouds or does this include both?

6) P13L313: Could there be a comment about the potential influence of the assumption that the emissions are only released into the lowest level? For example Giorgi and Chameides (1986) and Croft et al. (2014) show that the altitude of injection can strongly control lifetimes with respect to removal. Also Stohl et al. (2012) suggest that injection heights may have extended up to 1 km.

7) Section 2.4.2: Throughout this section, could the case numbers be replaced with the simulation names? For example, instead of ‘Cases 6,7,8 and 9’, the use of the simulation names from Table 1 would make this discussion easier to follow.

8) P18L436: The circles on the panels are helpful. Should the first panel also have a circle?

9) P19L447: This maybe more of a style issue, but I tend to avoid directives to the readers. Consider replacing ‘see Fig. 5’ with ‘as shown in Fig. 5’.

10) P20L478: Could there be a mention of why the two example stations are chosen?

11) P20L496: In regard to the influence of subtle differences in the wind fields at YAMAGATA generating large differences in precipitation, how also might the inhomogeneous terrain in this grid box contribute to the noted differences in precipitation and deposition. Could a comment be added to address this?

12) Table 4 onwards: Could the table caption mention where the definitions of SR and GR are given?

13) P22L546-551: There is a mention of under- and over-estimations here. Could there be a comment about the possible reasons for these differences at the various stations?

14) P23L571-573: Are the authors able to give an indication about why the different radionuclides are affected differently by wind and rainfall. Does this have to do with the gas to particle partitioning of 131I.

15) P24L599: Would the terminology ‘simulations’ be better than ‘runs’?

16) P25L609-614: Dry deposition seems to depend on the gas to particle partitioning. Would the conclusions about the performance of the dry deposition parameterizations for 131I be different if a different fraction for the partitioning was used? Likewise would this influence the conclusions about the wet deposition scheme that performs best for 131I as in P25L615-620. Perhaps this could be mentioned here.

17) P28L699: What is the definition of Error_ref and Error_sens in Eq. 23:

18) Conclusions: For consistency and to help readers to read the conclusions independently of the entire text, consider re-stating here the terminology for the AAD ranges that apply to your categories of ‘very sensitive’ and ‘moderately sensitive’ and use these terms consistently in the conclusions as opposed to P31L764, which uses the terminology ‘quite sensitive’.

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ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (16 Aug 2014) by Athanasios Nenes

AR by Xiaofeng Hu on behalf of the Authors (25 Aug 2014) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (13 Sep 2014) by Athanasios Nenes