Trends and Variability of Ozone Pollution over the Mountain-Basin Areas in Sichuan Province during 2013–2020: Synoptic Impacts and Formation Regimes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors examined the trends, synoptic patterns, and formation regimes of 2013-2020 surface ozone over Sichuan Basin. They highlighted the rapid increase in surface ozone, the importance of weather types and the mitigation by reducing ozone precursors in affecting ozone level. Overall, I believe this is timely study and provides useful scientific insights in ozone pollution control. The key conclusions are supported by reasonable illustrations. I am happy to see its publication in due course. Before that, however, I also think there several places that need to be improved in the text.

 

L28: you mean the peak for monthly ozone?

 

L53: “led to” should be revised. e.g., suffered from?

 

L92: I don’t think the VOC-limited regime is totally contrary to NOx-limited regime since ozone formation is also responsive to NOx emission changes under VOC-limited regime.

 

L93: it is better to replace “equally” by “both”.

 

L247: It looks that altitude is an important information. May you please have it added in Figure 2?

 

L282: It is better to note that your weather type classification is based on SLP data.

 

L321-322, Figure 1& Figure 6: I am not convinced about the argument of a decreasing type I over 2013-2020. The Figure 6 looks that type I has an increasing trend before 2017 and started to decrease after that. Moreover, Figure 1 shows that ozone level was flatted after 2018. I suggest the authors to discuss the possible linkage.

 

Figure5: it is okay to use the TAP ozone data, but how about site-based ozone under different weather types?

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is interested in very interesting topic: relationship between surface ozone concentration and meteorological condition. This paper according my opinion is written well, the results are interesting, the English is good so it can be accept in present form.  

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

 

The paper reads well, and the work is understandable, correct, and appropriate for the journal. The authors provide an important insight into the understanding of regional ozone pollution by linking it with meteorology and emission dependencies. The analysis might help in various regulatory processes.

Since I found the reduction emission strategy developed for a Sichuan Province the most interesting and valuable, I wonder whether the analysis can be extended a bit more, e.g., into another period. It is questionable whether the statements provided in Section 3.3 and Conclusion are not too definite/ decisive taking into account that the analysis is based only on three weeks of 2019. Will the results would be similar if EKMA curves are done for another period? Is it possible (does it make sense) to have a mean of EKMA curves over 2013-2020? It would be helpful if this issue could be clarified.

Also, some minor spell check might be required, e.g., line 183: liner -> linear.

In general, I recommend the paper for publication.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx