Diurnal and Seasonal Variability of the Atmospheric Boundary-Layer Height in Marseille (France) for Mistral and Sea/Land Breeze Conditions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

The manuscript is well written. I have signed some conceptual questions that deserves to be answered/contextualized. Overall, it is a nice and publishable paper on my opinion

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The authors present a study on boundary layer heights in a complex meteorological system like Marseille (land-see breeze/Mistral regime). The study is especially valuable due to the application and discussion of the quality of laser atmospheric profiling techniques on a long-term basis.

The remarks of the previous reviewers have been fully and nicely implemented in this version of the manuscript and also well described and justified in the answer letters to the reviewers. Therefore, I suggest the publication of this manuscript after minor revisions of mainly textual nature, especially in the Reference section. Please see the comments in the attached PDF file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

This work is interesting as it aims to improve our understanding of the diurnal and seasonal variation of the atmospheric boundary layer height in Marseille under two typical synoptic conditions. Whereas, the manuscript is not well organized, which lead to the novelty of this study is not emphasized or focused. Some comments and suggestions are as follows: 

1.      Too detailed description of the instruments and mathematic method is involved in Section 2, e.g., the explanation of the Harr method. A brief introduction of instruments, the Haar method, and the reliability of data used in this study is appropriate rather to using too many words to describe the Haar method since the reader can learn more information by reading the literature. 

2.      The events in Section 2.5 should be analyzed comprehensively rather than simply describe each event as in the manuscript, because the object of this work is to present general characteristics or rules of the diurnal and seasonal of the atmospheric boundary layer height in Marseille rather than generic description events. 

3.      Section 4 should to be simplified, it is enough to present the limitations during this study rather to give the detailed deficits of the mathematical method.  

4.      The format of references is not correct, in my opinion, the number of references is too much (up to 93), as this manuscript is a research article not a review article, the main function of reference is to trigger the study, to prove evidentiary material, etc.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper investigates the atmospheric boundary layer height (ABLH) in Marseille for two wind patterns, Mistral and sea/land breezes. The ABLH is retrieved by Haar wavelet method based on the lidar data under two wind patterns during summer and winter. It is a good job, however, the manuscript could be improved in aspect of description, Figures and conclusions. I suggest the publication of the paper after some major revisions.

The main modification suggestions are as follows:

1.               Lines 75-77, the percentage conclusions are calculated yourself or from literatures, if the former, what data has been used? In addition, take summer for example, 22% is sea/land breeze situations, 21% is mistral wind situations, the sum of two situations is less than half, how to explain these two situations are “predominance of two distinctive weather patterns”?

2.               Figure2-Figure5, the pictures are incomplete and lacks longitude and latitude information.

3.               Lines 195-206, is it reasonable to divide four flags? For example, Figure 6(4), between 19 on 15/12 and 05 on 16/12, why the calculated ABLH is bad? the calculated ABLH seems reasonable from the signal structures. In addition, in absence of interference of complex layers (e.g. cloud, residual aerosol layers), if the ABLH calculation is incorrect due to the algorithm (“bad”), the ABLH can be calculated as accurately as possible by adjusting the parameters in Haar wavelet method (e.g. between 11 on 20/11 and 21 on 20/02 in Figure 6(2)).

4.               What does the black dot in Figure 7 represent? Is it ABLH? not continuous enough, time smoothing or other methods could be used to ensure the continuity of calculated ABLH.

5.               Section 3.1 gives an overview of each event. However, there is no clear explanation for the main driven factors of ABLH development, thermal or dynamic factors? In addition, I don't think it is necessary to describe every evet in the same way, I look forward to the comparison between them and the explanation of different mechanisms.

6.               Lines 524-526, This is a consensus conclusion. I think it is more necessary to write out the development characteristics of the local ABL, such as the specific local time when the boundary layer reaches its peak value, and analyze the development mechanism.

7.               Lines 688-689, Is it related to case selection? there is only one case in each season and wind pattern, is it representative?

8.               Lines 708-710, common conclusion.

9.               Lines 865-866, “we investigated the variability and seasonality of the ABLH over Marseille”, only one case is selected in summer and winter, is the description “seasonality” appropriate?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see the attached file for my comments and suggestions

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Review of manuscript “Diurnal and seasonal variability of the atmospheric boundary

layer height in Marseille (France) assessed from two meteorological case studies: Mistral and sea/land breezes”

In the manuscript “Diurnal and seasonal variability of the atmospheric boundary layer height in Marseille (France) assessed from two meteorological case studies: Mistral and sea/land breezes” by Riandet et al. the authors characterized boundary layer heights over Marseille for two disparate meteorological regimes. The study has the potential to make a nice addition to the literature, but there are several areas where additional clarification and modifications are needed. For these reasons, which I discuss in more detail below, I recommend major revisions to the manuscript.

Major comments:

1.     In section 2.1, more details are needed about the instrument setup, i.e. details about the instruments themselves, sampling heights, etc.

2.     There are several instances throughout the manuscript where the salient meteorological and dynamical processes are not well described. For example, in Line 263, it is unclear what the authors mean by saying that the low-pressure area was reinforced. Reinforced by what? Another example occurs in Line 282-291. In this section, it is unclear what the authors mean “no synoptic winds” and “with sea level pressures.” Again, this section and others would benefit from a more thorough characterization of the meteorological setup and dynamical processes occurring. Same comment applies for Section 2.5.4.

3.     In several of the figures (e.g., Figure 6), UTC should be capitalized on the figure caption and, per my earlier comment, the dates should be formatted for consistency throughout the manuscript. In Figure 6, I note the presence of data points labeled good, bad, and undetermined but it is difficult to distinguish these points on the figure. Perhaps I overlooked it in the manuscript, but the authors also need to justify, ideally in Section 2, why they chose to show points labeled as “bad” or “undetermined.”

4.     The conclusion that turbulence has a greater impact than radiative cooling on the variability in the nocturnal PBL height (c.f., Lines 703-707) was not clear from the results presented.

5.     Throughout the manuscript the statement “Error! Reference source not found” which obfuscated the readability of the manuscript and needs to be fixed.

Minor comments:

Line 17: Change “aerosol” to “aerosols.”

Line 38: What is meant by “higher convective processes”? Higher than what?

Line 52: Per my previous comment, lower than what?

Line 170: Define “BASIC”

Line 238-239: Clarify that these times are in UTC.

Line 247: Make date format consistent across manuscript so that these dates shown in Table 3 are in the same format as those shown in Line 251.

Line 252: Just say “high pressure” rather than “high pressure area.”

Line 260 and elsewhere: The labels on the legend are very difficult to read. To improve legibility, show fewer values, and change font color / size.

Line 268: Say “high pressure” rather than “high pressure system.” Same for low pressure area. And I suggest implementing this change in other areas in the manuscript (e.g., Line 283 but other locations as well).

Line 278: Change “in” to “on.”

Line 309 and elsewhere: The legend for the units of backscatter are misplaced, appearing next to the wind direction plot rather than to the time series plot of backscatter. Clarification is also needed about what “PR2 u.a.” is.

Line 321 and elsewhere: Are these surface wind speeds? More details about the instrumental setup earlier in the manuscript will be helpful since these values appear anomalously large.

Line 350-351: More details are needed about the origin of the SST analyses.

Line 411: Clarify these times are UTC.

Line 431-432: Resolve the inconsistency in the date formatting.

Line 446: Why do several of the values shown in Table 5 have an asterisk next to them?

Line 452: What are “top layer clouds”?

Line 492: I suggest resizing Figure 8 to reduce its size. Perhaps resize the figure as two rows and two columns?

Line 532: By “huge” do you mean significant?

Line 554: What is “par inhibited growth”?

Line 585-586: Please substantiate/clarify this statement.

Author Response

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