Ground Electric Field, Atmospheric Weather and Electric Grid Variations in Northeast Greece Influenced by the March 2012 Solar Activity and the Moderate to Intense Geomagnetic Storms
, Sofia-Anna Menesidou 4, Dimitrios Efthymiadis 1, Stefanos Keskinis 5, Dimitar Ouzounov 6, Nick Hatzigeorgiu 7 and Michael Danikas 1
Ildiko Horvath
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript is very interesting, showing the correlation of Solar activity and the magnetic storm induced in the Earth magnetosphere with extreme meteorological events and atmospheric electric field fluctuations occurred in March 2012. Despite the major occurrence of anthropogenic-induced extreme events and also the weather influence of the well-known North Atlantic Oscillation, both discussed in the manuscript. The correlation analysis shown in the manuscript is a very current and important topic of research, but needs to be improved.
The correlation analysis shown in the manuscript is still incipient, and would need to be improved. As stressed by the authors in the final section of the manuscript, further studies are required to better analyze the suggested correlation. Such improvement would require more data, more test case studies, the use of Data Science tools, etc. However, surely, the manuscript is a good starting point, at least for the March 2012 event.
The manuscript is well written, but the title is too long, making difficult to understand the scope of the manuscript. It could be possible abbreviated to something like: "Electric field and weather-related influence of the March 2012 Solar activity and resulting superstorm in Northeast Greece".
The structure of the manuscript is rather confusing, and sections should be rearranged for the sake of clarity. A brief description of the manuscript (similar to the abstract itself) should be included in the beginning of the Introduction section. Besides minor English corrections, the manuscript needs to have its sections rearranged in order to enhance its clarity. It is basically a reformatting issue also demanding some rewriting of the text. Section 2 (Instrument and Data) should include all the figures that do not correlate weather, atmospheric electrical field and power lines with Solar activity or ionospheric variables. The correlation or cause-effect analysis should be then presented in Section 3, perhaps merging it with Section 4.
The quality of the figures could be improved, and also adopt a more homogeneous graphics pattern, once these figures were originated from different sources. In addition, captions should describe the figures in a more straightforward way, avoiding the need of looking at the text that references the figure in order to obtain its full description. See for instance this part of the text that should be in the caption: "The two lines on the top of each panel indicate differential intensities (#el / (cm2. sec. sr. keV) in the energy range 30-100 keV (multiplied by a factor of 10) and 100-300 keV. The line at the bottom of thepanels a, b and c indicates the integral intensity (#el / (cm2. sec. sr) of semi-relativistic (>30041 keV) electrons." Please revise figure numbers, some are wrong.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageOnly very minor points need to be addresses: (i) please check the lack of blank spaces between words and after commas or parenthesis. (ii) choose a standard format to specify dates (choose only one date format), (iii) define T as temperature in the first time it is referenced. Idem for GHG (Greenhouse Gases).
Author Response
The response to reviewer #1 is sent by the "Response to Reviewer-1c.docx file
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments and remarks:
Page 1, line 42, 46
NAO abbreviation should be explained.
Page 2, line 20
Global warming is considered to be the agent of the increased frequency (of what?) in our times
Page 3, line 8
Reference [23] does not refer to the influence of ICMEs on the lithosphere. They consider only interrelation of Sq-variations of geomagnetic field and seismic activity. Please, indicate another papers on interrelation of ICMEs and processes in lithosphere.
Page 3, line 27
Halloween October 2003 solar events and they observed a T temperature increase after large magnetic...
Page 4, lines 23-24
In this study we will show, for the first time, that GIC disturbances in the electric network may affect the middle latitude southeast Europe as well.
"For the first time" is not correct. Please, see the paper: Gil, A.; Berendt-Marchel, M.; Modzelewska, R.; Siluszyk, A.; Siluszyk, M.;Wawrzaszek, A.; Wawrzynczak, A. Review of Geomagnetically Induced Current Proxies in Mid-Latitude European Countries. Energies 2023, 16, 7406. https://doi.org/10.3390/en16217406
where the GIC effects are considered in the mid-latitude European countries including Greece. Please, correct.
Page 4, lines 48-49
...at times of substorm onseti n nighttime auroral latitudes.
May be "during the onset of a substorm in night auroral latitudes"? Please, edit the text.
Page 9, lines 6-7
... However, solar or galactic cosmic rays are known to influence the atmospheric dynamics. Reference is required.
Page 18, Figure 10
Please, consider the quality improvement of Figure 10.
Page 20, line 10-11
... for the maximums MIN (blue curves) and for the minimums MAX (green curves)... Is it correct?
Please, check the text carefully for misprints and correct spacing. In many cases the spaces were missed.
My decision:
The manuscript may be accepted for publishing after the text editing.
Author Response
Pllease look at the file "Response to Reviewer-2cdocx"
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsGeneral Comments:
Detailed Comments: 1. What is the main question addressed by the research? The main question addressed is the validity of the basic assumption that global warming and climate change are solely caused by human activity. Opposing this basic assumption, many authors in the literature suggest that climate change should not be considered the sole cause of each one of the extreme weather events occurred. According to many authors, some natural variations can also trigger extreme events. So, the scientifically correct question is: What is the role of the Sun influencing climate change, creating extreme weather, and impacting infrastructure such as power grids, pipe lines and electrical circuits? In order to investigate this scientifically correct question, the authors focus on the extreme weather that caused wintery conditions in the spring of 2012 (in March) accompanied by cyclonic activities and follow a scientifically correct methodology. 2. Do you consider the topic original or relevant in the field? Does it address a specific gap in the field? Yes, the topic is original since it deals with a scientifically correct problem. The topic is also relevant to the field since the study utilises a wide range of data from a wide range of remote sensing techniques in order to discover the root cause of the extreme weather that unfolded in Greece in March 2012 and also the resultant impact on power grids. One of the novel findings is the documentation of geomagnetically induced voltage changes in electric grids. The obtained improved understanding opens a new window into space weather applications research. This is a significant addition to the field, since the existing gap and lack of knowledge along with the absence of sufficient information in this field are created by the limited studies researching the root cause of climate change that is widely attributed to human activity. 3. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material? This is a very solid and detailed work, employing a whole range of scientific data -in scientifically correct way- in order to investigate the solar, interplanetary, geomagnetic, geophysical and meteorological conditions during the March 2012 extreme weather events impacting Greece with wintery conditions and cyclones. The authors document with correlated space weather and earth weather observations, providing solid scientific evidence, that (1) the root cause of the extreme March 2012 earth weather events was the solar activity generating a series of geomagnetic storms and (2) the resultant space weather impacted the local infrastructure (power grids) by the induced electric fields and currents. This study is the continuation of their previous investigations focusing on the March 2012 extreme heat wave impacting North America (while Greece experienced wintery conditions and cyclones -as investigated in this study). 4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered? This was only a case study for one particular extreme weather event occurring in Greece. But more detailed case studies are needed, based on a wide rage of high time-resolution data, in order to extract the hidden information from extreme weather events unfolding under various conditions and to gain a better understanding of the underlying driving mechanisms. 5. Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and do they address the main question posed? Yes, the conclusions are consistent with the results and are summarized. The authors listed the main findings is 12 points. The conclusions are summarized in a separate section (Section 5). 6. Are the references appropriate? Yes. 7. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures. The figures and tables are very detailed and of very high standard. These show that the authors put a lot of work and effort into their research. But there are some errors and inaccuracies that need to be corrected. These are detailed in my comments to the authors (see below). Therefore, I recommend major corrections.
Overall, the manuscript is very interesting and well written. The authors report the second phase of their work investigating the root cause of the extreme weather (ranging from heat waves in Northern America to winter like conditions in spring exacerbated by cyclones in Greece) that occurred during the March 2012 geomagnetic storm series. The study is the result of a solid and extensive work with lots of efforts put in. The study is novel, reports new results based on convincing and solid observational evidence, and increases our understanding regarding the various driver-response mechanisms underlying earth weather and the impacts of space weather on infrastructure (power lines/grids) leading to the better specifications of natural and man-made causes triggering weather extremes. The authors focused on the 3-17 March 2012 time period and utilized a wide variety solar, space and meteorological data to demonstrate the positive correlations found between the solar driven variations and the resultant meteorological/geophysical variations for the time period investigated.
But there are a few errors to be corrected, improvements to be made, and issues to be dealt with before the manuscripts is accepted for publications.
Errors:
The major error is the “superstorm” classifications the authors use. There is a general geomagnetic storm classification given by for example Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm).
According to the Dst plot shown in Figure 3d, the Dst index did not even reach -150 nT. So, according to the storm classification, most of these storms are moderate storms (Dst between -50 nT and -100 nT) and the strongest storm is an intense storm (with just over -100 nT).
Superstorm is when the Dst index is less than -250 nT. The 2003 Halloween Storm was a superstorm with a Dst minimum close to -450 nT.
So, the authors need to remove “superstorm” and replace it with moderate or intense storm, depending which particular storm of the March 2012 storm series they talk about (see Detailed Comments).
The title should be changed to:
“Extreme bad weather, large atmospheric electric field fluctuations and anomalous changes in the High Voltage electric power network in Thrace, North-East Greece, during the Solar Activity and the moderate to intense geomagnetic storms of March 2012”
Improvements:
For Figures 3 and 13: covering all the graphs, the authors should mark (as red or blue rectangles) the time intervals of the 4 SEP events. Possibly in Figure 10 as well.
The dates: many times, the authors use March 2012 but sometimes 3.2012. I corrected a few “3.2012”. All the “3.2012” should be corrected to March 2012.
There are quite a few typos with the figure numbers and dates (see detailed comments below).
The line numbering should be continuous, it is easier to use (since page numbers are not involved).
Issues:
The most outstanding issue is the usage of “agent”. The authors use it in order to cover different meanings and leave it to the imagination of the reader to figure out the proper meaning. In a scientific work, a general expression like this should not be used. Maybe, the authors were not certain which specific meaning to use (and covered everything with the generic expression of agent). In order to help the situation, I corrected each to its specific meaning (see Detailed Comments below).
Detailed Comments:
Page 1 L1-5: “Extreme bad weather, large atmospheric electric field fluctuations and anomalous changes in the High Voltage electric power network in Thrace, North-East Greece, during the Solar Activity and the magnetic Superstorm of March 2012” should read
“Extreme bad weather, large atmospheric electric field fluctuations and anomalous changes in the High Voltage electric power network in Thrace, North-East Greece, during the Solar Activity and the moderate to intense geomagnetic storms of March 2012”
P1 L41: “March 2012 superstorm” should read “March 2012 storm series”
Page 2 L2: “Space Weather as agents of” should read “Space Weather as drivers of”
Page 2 L20: “to be the agent of the increased” should read “to be a manifestation of the increased”
Page 3 L24: “the main agent of” should, read “the main cause of”
Page 3 L30: the 2013 Halloween events” should read “the 2003 Halloween events”
Page 4 L53: “the 2013 Halloween events” should read “the 2003 Halloween events”
Page 6 L22: “heat wave in March 2015.” Should read “heat wave in March 2012.”
Page 7 L15: “interplanetary space (interplanetary space)” should read “interplanetary space (IP space)”
Page 8 L13-14: “a superstorm occurred consisting of four” should read “a storm series occurred consisting of four”
Page 9 L17: “escape into the interplanetary” should read “escape into the interplanetary space”
Page 10 L10: “on March 2013” should read “on March 2012”
Page 11 L48: “candidate agent of” should read “candidate driver mechanism of”
Page 12 L16: “a superstorm” should read “a storm series”
Page 12 L24: “as an agent of the” should read “as an driver of the”
Page 13 L15: “on 9-11. 2012” should read “on 9-11 March 2012”
Page 13 L16: “~8-11.3. 2012” should read “~8-11 March 2012”
Page 14 L13: “Figure 6” should read “Figure 7”
Page 15 L27: “days 8-10.2012” should read “days 8-10 March 2012”
Page 17 L8: “In Figure 6” should read “In Figure 8”
Page 17 L17: “Figure 6 helps” should read “Figure 9 helps”
Page 17 L30: “the cloudy in” should read “the cloudy conditions in”
Page 17 L41 and L44: “Figure 8” should read “Figure 10”
Page 18 L7: “28 and 30 October 2013” should read “28 and 30 October 2003”
Page 18 L18: “Figure 8” should read “Figure 10”
Page 19 L19: “geoeffective superstorm of March” should read “geoeffective storm series of March”
Page 19 L20: “if the agent of the” should read “if the cause of the”
Page 20 L17: “whole period 5-15.3.2015” should read “whole period 5-15.3.2012”
or “whole period 5-15 March 2012”
Page 20 L20: “current average voltage value in the last 5s” should read “existing average voltage value in the last 5s”
Page 20 L21: “5-15.3.2015” should read “5-15.3.2012” or “5-15 March 2012”
Page 24 L10: “solar a7d space weather” should be corrected for “a7d”
Page 25 L6-7: “current average voltage value” should read “existing average voltage value”
Page 25 L20: “the possible agent of” should read “the possible cause of”
Page 25 L23: “may have the same agent” should read “may have the same root cause”
Page 25 L28: “the agent of” should read “the root cause of”
Page 25 L50: “March 2012 magnetic superstorm” should read “March 2012 magnetic storm series”
Page 25 L53: “March 2012 magnetic superstorm (Dst = -150 nT);”
should read “March 2012 magnetic storm series (minimum Dst = -150 nT);”
Page 26 L7: “was the agent of” should read “was the root cause of”
Page 27 L22: “the agent of the” should read “the trigger of the”
Page 27 L23: “was not the agent of the” should read “was not the cause of the”
Page 27 L28: “the different agents of the” should read “the different drivers of the”
Page 28 L18: “from a lot of remote” should read “from a large number of remote”
Page 28 L21: “of this variety of data” should read “of these large variety of data”
Page 28 L38: “the main agent of the” should read “the root cause of the”
Page 28 L42: “the main extraterrestrial agent of weather variations”
should read “the main extraterrestrial driver of weather variations”
Page 28 L44: “space and physical” should read “space and geophysical”
Page 28 L49: “was most probably the agent of the” should read “was most probably the root cause of the”
Page 28 L52: “of a common agent may” should read “of a common driver mechanism may”
Page 29 L1: “anthropogenic versus physical” should read “anthropogenic versus geophysical”
Figures:
In Figure 3: panel a is not described.
Figure 4: “with a cusp fulfilled with” should read “with a cusp fully filled with”
Figure 13: “on March 2010” should read “on March 2012”
Author Response
Please look at the file "Response to Reviewer-3c.docx"
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis work looks important for understanding the coupling between solar activity-space weather and climate on the Earth.
Although, figures clearly show relation between processes related to the solar activity and weather on the Earth, it would be nice to see quantitative (statistical) parameters justifying correlation between these , above mentioned phenomena.
Author Response
Please look at the file "Response to Reviewer-4c.docx"
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript is very interesting, showing the possible correlation of Solar activity and the magnetic storm induced in the Earth magnetosphere with extreme meteorological events and atmospheric electric field fluctuations occurred in March 2012. The correlation analysis shown in the manuscript is still incipient, and would need to be improved in future work, for instance for more test cases. However, the manuscript addresses a very current and important topic of research, which surely needs to be continued.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsGeneral Comments:
I am happy with the corrections made and recommend the manuscript to be published in its present form. There are a few typos that the authors should correct during the process of proofreading (see detailed comments below).
Detailed Comments:
Text:
Page 2 L13: “ijncreased” should read “increased”
Page 2 L53: “high-time resolution” should read “high time resolution”
Page 3 L36: “cause” should read “causes”
Page 18 L22: “the arrival of the arrival of” should read “the arrival of”
Page 24 L15-16: “On the other side” should read “On the other hand”
Figure captions:
For Figure 4:
Page 11 L7: “Panel a manifests a” should read “Panel a depicts a”
For Figure 11:
Page 21 L 11-12: “for the minimums MIN (green curves) and the maximums MAX (blue curves) of hourly averaged values”
should read
“for the minimum (MIN; green curves) and maximum (MAX; blue curves) hourly averaged values”
For Figure 16:
P33 L17-21: “The larger the DC current that can be added to the AC of a coil, the more deformation and the waveform of the transformer's current is asymmetric. Figure 16 shows that the vertices of the positive portions of the AC waveform are five times higher due to the effect of the DC.”
should read:
“The larger the DC current that can be added to the AC of a coil, the more deformation is caused and the waveform of the transformer's current is more asymmetric. Figure 16 shows that the positive AC waveform amplitudes are five times higher due to the effect of the DC.”
