Modelling Radiative and Convective Thermal Exchanges over a European City Center and Their Effects on Atmospheric Dispersion

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

See attached review, The authors should be encouraged to employ the services of a good technical editor. The authors must check the citation of the figures numbers. The conclusions section is weak and needs strengthening.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

[General comments]

This paper is an interesting paper through considering surface energy balance and flow. Previous studies have not overcome this issue so that this paper is novel and attractive. For instance, ENVI-met has been widely used but it cannot account for the airflow convection. However, authors have to do major revisions before its acceptance. One of the key issues is the lack of references throughout the paper.

[Q1] The argument could be more reliable if authors can add references in the introduction. In particular the first paragraph of the introduction.

[Q2] Line 47-48, authors are encouraged to add water bodies, urban greening and rational design of urban morphology for better ventilation and solar radiation. Please refer:

He, B. J., Ding, L., & Prasad, D. (2020). Relationships among local-scale urban morphology, urban ventilation, urban heat island and outdoor thermal comfort under sea breeze influence. Sustainable Cities and Society, 60, 102289.

He, B. J., Ding, L., & Prasad, D. (2020). Urban ventilation and its potential for local warming mitigation: A field experiment in an open low-rise gridiron precinct. Sustainable Cities and Society, 55, 102028.

[Q3] Line 57-64, I do not think the content is consistent with your argument in line 50-55. Authors have not mentioned the surface energy balance, whilst ENVI-met is well acknowledged in the field of microclimate studies. The content in line 57-64 might be moved to other paragraph.

[Q4] It is better to avoid use ‘we …’ in the formal academic language.

[Q5] Since authors have presented various models and different simplification and assumptions, I suggest authors should add a framework to describe the process. Moreover, Section 3, 4 and 5 can be combined into only one section.

[Q6] Line 215 the LL should be double checked.

[Q7] Line 224, error?

[Q8] Line 222-227, any detailed information should be provided. Line 231 indicates the meteorological data, but the information in line 234-236 is about the geometric data.

[Q9] Line 251-257, please indicate when you did the measurement?

Overall, I do not think the method is well presented and readers cannot verify the correctness of the model.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Qualitative work that studies the dispersion of pollutants, taking into account the radiative effects of urban development.  May be accepted for publication with the correction of a number of noticed inaccuracies and typos noted in the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have addressed the comments/suggested revisions identified by the peer reviews. One minor editorial revision is recommended:

pp.11, par.1, line 4: ...It should note that it is... ---> ....It should be noted that it is...

The revised manuscript read wuite well.

Reviewer 2 Report

N/A