Multi-model evaluation of short-lived pollutant distributions over east Asia during summer 2008

Quennehen, B.; Raut, J.-C.; Law, K. S.; Daskalakis, N.; Ancellet, G.; Clerbaux, C.; Kim, S.-W.; Lund, M. T.; Myhre, G.; Olivié, D. J. L.; Safieddine, S.; Skeie, R. B.; Thomas, J. L.; Tsyro, S.; Bazureau, A.; Bellouin, N.; Hu, M.; Kanakidou, M.; Klimont, Z.; Kupiainen, K.; Myriokefalitakis, S.; Quaas, J.; Rumbold, S. T.; Schulz, M.; Cherian, R.; Shimizu, A.; Wang, J.; Yoon, S.-C.; Zhu, T.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-10765-2016

Articles | Volume 16, issue 17

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-10765-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-10765-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 17

Research article

|

31 Aug 2016

Research article |

| 31 Aug 2016

Multi-model evaluation of short-lived pollutant distributions over east Asia during summer 2008

B. Quennehen, J.-C. Raut, K. S. Law, N. Daskalakis, G. Ancellet, C. Clerbaux, S.-W. Kim, M. T. Lund, G. Myhre, D. J. L. Olivié, S. Safieddine, R. B. Skeie, J. L. Thomas, S. Tsyro, A. Bazureau, N. Bellouin, M. Hu, M. Kanakidou, Z. Klimont, K. Kupiainen, S. Myriokefalitakis, J. Quaas, S. T. Rumbold, M. Schulz, R. Cherian, A. Shimizu, J. Wang, S.-C. Yoon, and T. Zhu

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Final revised paper (published on 31 Aug 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 15 Apr 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC C3100: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #2, 29 May 2015
- AC C12272: 'Reply to reviewer 2', Boris Quennehen, 09 Feb 2016
RC C3864: 'What did we learn from this publication?', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 Jun 2015
- AC C12288: 'Reply to reviewer 1', Boris Quennehen, 09 Feb 2016

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Boris Quennehen on behalf of the Authors (11 Feb 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (11 Mar 2016) by Tim Butler

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (26 Mar 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors have done a good job of addressing my key concerns and those of the other reviewer. They have extended their analysis, substantially improved the interpretative aspects of their discussion, and tidied up the introduction and conclusions to improve the focus and value of the study. The net result is a manuscript which gives a more focussed and coherent description of the studies undertaken, and provides a clearer insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the models involved. The written style remains a little weak in places and would benefit from some final polishing, but in other respects is generally satisfactory. There are a number of inconsistencies and minor issues that need to be resolved, after which the paper should be suitable for publication in ACP.

Specific Comments

P.2,l.17 (and p.24,l.8): The conclusion regarding ESMs performing similarly to CTMs isn't very useful given that they are run at a similar resolution in the atmosphere and that there is little opportunity for other parts of the earth system to influence the results in these constrained studies addressing anthropogenic sources. Do the coarse resolution models actually perform as well as the fine resolution models such as WRF-Chem?

p.3, para 1: This introductory information is useful but is not well balanced, as it focusses almost exclusively on climate impacts. Air quality impacts are only mentioned in the final sentence, even though they are of much greater concern to residents in East Asia, and are the main motivation for emissions mitigation here, not climate.

p.4,l.13: add "due to their coarse spatial resolution", as this aspect isn't introduced earlier.

p.5,l.2: from Shanghai? In other respects this sentence appears to contradict the earlier statement that the monsoon brings cleaner air from the Pacific.

p.11,l.15: This sentence states that data are binned from 500 to 2500m, but Figure 6 shows data from 200 to 2200m if the labelling is correct.

p.13,l.15: Low O3 and high NOx at night may also be due to insufficient PBL mixing. The cause is as likely to be dynamical as chemical, so perhaps add "and transport" after "processing"?

p.14,l.8: This chemical explanation for low CO may be correct, but excessive OH also leads to faster VOC oxidation which provides a source of CO, dampening this effect. Uncertainty in emissions and differences in vertical transport may still be important here.

Fig 2: It would be helpful to the reader to shift the lower panels one place to the right, so that specific models are aligned the same across Figures 2, 3 and 4.

Throughout the paper there are places with sequential or nested parentheses, often associated with incorrectly formatted citations, which need to be cleaned up.

Typos, etc.

P.2,l.6: divergences -> differences? (also p.21,l.30)
p.3,l.2: "and" missing before "non" (or add "methane, and" and remove the following sentence).
p.4,l.34: remove "whilst"
p.5,l.9: "the Beijing province" -> "Beijing Municipality" (also p.7,l.21)
p.6,l.3: missing ")"
p.6,l.10: add "a" before "large"
p.6,l.11: years -> year
p.7,l.22: remove "showing, for example," Please check text here.
p.8,l.9: "e.g." to precede citation
p.9,l.24: add "in" before East
p.11,l.25: add "is" before "more"
p.12,l.14: "CO The" -> "CO. The"
p.13,l.9: "NONOx" NO or NOx?
p.13,l.11: citation missing
p.13,l.17: modeled -> model
p.13,l.18: remove ")"
p.15,l.8: white -> blue
p.22,l.1: "excessive/lacking" Please rephrase this sentence to make the meaning clear.
p.22,l.13: "high oscillations" Is the intended meaning "a large variation", or is there really a periodic component?
p.22,l.19: add "the" before Olympic
p.24,l.14: "which" -> "and this has" (or replace has with have)

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ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (27 Mar 2016) by Tim Butler

AR by Boris Quennehen on behalf of the Authors (09 Apr 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (09 May 2016) by Tim Butler

Short summary

This paper evaluates the ability of six global models and one regional model in reproducing short-lived pollutants (defined here as ozone and its precursors, aerosols and black carbon) concentrations over Asia using satellite, ground-based and airborne observations. Key findings are that models homogeneously reproduce the trace gas observations although nitrous oxides are underestimated, whereas the aerosol distributions are heterogeneously reproduced, implicating important uncertainties.