An overview of regional and local characteristics of aerosols in South Africa using satellite, ground, and modeling data

Hersey, S. P.; Garland, R. M.; Crosbie, E.; Shingler, T.; Sorooshian, A.; Piketh, S.; Burger, R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-4259-2015

Articles | Volume 15, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-4259-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-4259-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 8

Research article

|

24 Apr 2015

Research article |

| 24 Apr 2015

An overview of regional and local characteristics of aerosols in South Africa using satellite, ground, and modeling data

S. P. Hersey, R. M. Garland, E. Crosbie, T. Shingler, A. Sorooshian, S. Piketh, and R. Burger

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Final revised paper (published on 24 Apr 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Sep 2014)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC C8464: 'Anonymous Referee Comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 Oct 2014
- RC C9983: 'An overview of regional and local characteristics of aerosols in South Africa using satellite, ground, and modeling data', Anonymous Referee #2, 09 Dec 2014
  - AC C12411: 'Response to anonymous reviewer #2', Hersey Scott, 27 Feb 2015
- AC C12402: 'Response to anonymous reviewer #1', Hersey Scott, 27 Feb 2015

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Hersey Scott on behalf of the Authors (27 Feb 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (27 Feb 2015) by Paola Formenti

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (15 Mar 2015)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Summary

The authors made many important revisions in response to my comments and another Reviewer. In particular, the figures are much better. Figure 1 is a fascinating map, but the authors made detailed improvements in many of the other figures (and captions) as well. Section 3.4 is very much improved. This Section is the highlight of the paper for me. I have some suggestions below that I would appreciate a response to, but otherwise, I would say the paper is publishable pending minor revisions. My comments are relative to line numbering in acp-2014-562-manuscript-version2.pdf.

Specific

Abstract: I would recommend cutting everything from “The urban/industrial…” on pg. 1 line 15 to pg. 2 line 28. Then cut everything from pg. 2 line 32 “Disagreement…” to the end. The Abstract, as it is written, contains more detail than needed and, in my opinion, attribution statements should be largely saved for the longer, more nuanced discussion within the main text of the manuscript.

Pg. 3, line 39: Organic is misspelled.

Section 2.5: I would suggest at least mentioning that AERONET evaluations are intended for future research. This could be relevant in Section 2.5, or perhaps in the conclusions. AERONET played a major role in SAFARI 2000 (Eck et al. JGR 2003), so there is legacy in that. But a quick look at the AERONET website suggests Pretoria has an operating site – maybe this is what was referred to as the Johannesburg area AERONET in the reply to review comments. Either way, others may note this as well, or wonder about legacy data from SAFARI-2000 era, and wonder whether AERONET is any better than satellite for surface PM.

pg. 9, line 281: I missed this discussion in the first version. Please clarify what “It follows” is actually following from. Also, this statement seems to ignore the very interesting “River of Smoke” event finding from SAFARI 2000. My recollection is that the River of Smoke was a relatively common wintertime meteorological flow pattern such that northern South Africa (i.e. Kruger-Pretoria towards Zambia) AOD was heavily impacted by transported smoke. Can this paragraph discussion be reconciled with a massive smoke transport event like the River of Smoke?

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RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (16 Mar 2015)

ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (20 Mar 2015) by Paola Formenti

AR by Hersey Scott on behalf of the Authors (25 Mar 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (26 Mar 2015) by Paola Formenti

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Short summary

A decadal aerosol climatology of South Africa's major metropolitan areas is presented, utilizing data from multiple satellite platforms and 19 ground-monitoring sites. Remotely sensed data are dominated by a seasonal signal corresponding to transported biomass burning during austral spring, while ground data are dominated by domestic burning in low-income areas during austral winter. We report poor agreement between satellite- and ground-based aerosol measurements.