Seasonality of aerosol optical properties in the Arctic

Schmeisser, Lauren; Backman, John; Ogren, John A.; Andrews, Elisabeth; Asmi, Eija; Starkweather, Sandra; Uttal, Taneil; Fiebig, Markus; Sharma, Sangeeta; Eleftheriadis, Kostas; Vratolis, Stergios; Bergin, Michael; Tunved, Peter; Jefferson, Anne

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11599-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11599-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11599-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 16

Research article

|

16 Aug 2018

Research article |

| 16 Aug 2018

Seasonality of aerosol optical properties in the Arctic

Lauren Schmeisser, John Backman, John A. Ogren, Elisabeth Andrews, Eija Asmi, Sandra Starkweather, Taneil Uttal, Markus Fiebig, Sangeeta Sharma, Kostas Eleftheriadis, Stergios Vratolis, Michael Bergin, Peter Tunved, and Anne Jefferson

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Final revised paper (published on 16 Aug 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 31 Jan 2018)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Referee comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 21 Feb 2018
- AC1: 'Response to Referee Comment #1', L. Schmeisser, 10 May 2018
RC2: 'Review of the manuscript “Seasonality of aerosol optical properties in the Arctic” by Lauren Schmeisser et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 27 Feb 2018
- AC2: 'Response to Reviewer Comment #2', L. Schmeisser, 10 May 2018
AC1: 'Response to Referee Comment #1', L. Schmeisser, 10 May 2018
AC2: 'Response to Reviewer Comment #2', L. Schmeisser, 10 May 2018

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Lauren Schmeisser on behalf of the Authors (10 May 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (01 Jun 2018) by Nikos Hatzianastassiou

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (01 Jun 2018)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (08 Jun 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I thank the authors for their responses that address the majority of my comments.
However, I think that some points could be better addressed/commented. My additional comments below.

Comment#2- AAE: In your first version of the manuscript you commented this "lack of interest" of presenting AAE. Consequently, you decided to remove from the text that comment. However, I think that at least a couple of sentences on AAE should be presented in the paper and the Figure presented in the Supplement Material. As you have highlighted in your response, the climatology of AAE in the Arctic has never been presented before. Moreover, I would not use the 520/660 nm wavelength pair to calculate the AAE. Rather, I would use the entire measured spectrum calculating the AAE as fit of the 7 wavelengths.

Comment#2- SSA: Undoubtedly, the nephelometer does not measure in the UV and in the near-IR. Despite this, the spectral dependence of SSA from UV to near-IR has been already published assuming that the SAE calculated in the visible can be used to calculate the scattering from UV (370nm) to near-IR (950nm). I do not know if the high S/N of the calculated UV and near-IR scattering and of the measured absorption can mask any interesting feature. It is impossible to know this without performing the calculations. I would like at least to know if there is any interesting feature. If yes, maybe a couple of sentences could be added to the manuscript.

Comment#10: As in my comment above. I do not know how much the high S/N affects these calculations. Moreover, the Arctic is a very pristine environment and calculating SAE pairs could not add any interesting information. But, I think you could try to calculate these SAE pairs and, in case something interesting come up, a short paragraph could be added to the manuscript.

Comment#19 and #20: I think the scat vs. g Figure you report in your response is quite interesting. It confirms what you mention in your response #20 that shape and size distribution affect differently g and SAE. In the scat vs. g figure g increases with scattering at all stations (except at PAL) indicating a progressive shift of the size distribution toward large particles maybe in the accumulation mode (consistent with aging for example). The increase of g with increasing scattering is consistent with the progressive decrease of SAE at BRW. The slight decrease of g with increasing scattering at PAL seems to be consistent with the increase of SAE. At all other stations it seems that a clear relationship is not observed. Look for example at ZEP where the SAE is almost constant whereas the g clearly increases. This is very probably related to the aerosol size distribution. I agree to not present the size distributions in this paper, but I would add the scattering vs g Figure in the manuscript.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (02 Jul 2018) by Nikos Hatzianastassiou

AR by Lauren Schmeisser on behalf of the Authors (12 Jul 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (26 Jul 2018) by Nikos Hatzianastassiou

AR by Lauren Schmeisser on behalf of the Authors (27 Jul 2018)

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Short summary

This paper presents pan-Arctic seasonality of in-situ-measured aerosol optical properties from six surface monitoring sites. The analysis provides insight into aerosol annual variability throughout the region – something that is not possible using only measurements from satellite or temporary aircraft campaigns. This paper shows that the large spatiotemporal variability in aerosol optical properties needs to be taken into account in order to properly represent Arctic climate.