From the journal Environmental Science: Atmospheres Peer review history

29-May-2022

Dear Dr Sorooshian:

Manuscript ID: EA-ART-05-2022-000049
TITLE: Relationships between supermicrometer particle concentrations and cloud water sea salt and dust concentrations: Analysis of MONARC and ACTIVATE data

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Dr Tzung-May Fu
Associate Editor
Environmental Science: Atmospheres
Royal Society of Chemistry

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Reviewer 1

The authors present a first analysis of extensive airborne in situ measurements during two field campaigns focusing on giant cloud condensation nuclei. The composition of collected cloud water is compared to measured particle concentrations. The relations are tested using linear regression models.
The study falls into the scope of Environ. Sci. Atmos. and is scientifically sound, correctly mentioning the possible shortcomings and possible further needed studies.
Two minor comments might need to be adressed before publication:
1. How exactly where the cloud tops/bottoms defined? What is the reason/ for 0.02 g cm^-3 LWC threshold?
2. Figure 3 needs to be explained in more detail. Is this the average over all flights? Or a single profile? There are clearly some features (e.g., peaks at 300 m (Fig. 3a), at 1000-1500 m (Fig. 3b), and at around 1000 m (Fig. 3c)). What do these features represent?

Additionally, some suggestions concerning formatting, mainly in the reference sections, are provided in the attached file.

Reviewer 2

This word reported valuable aircraft datasets of cloud water chemical compositions and Giant CCN concentrations measured in different seasons and ocean regions, which can be useful for studies of GCCN-cloud interactions. The analysis also provided some qualitative clues into this poorly understood topic. However, too much abbreviations affects the reading and review, thus suggest authors use less, for example there is no need to use abbreviation for water vapor mixing ratio. I only have some specific comments listed below:
Specific comments:
L63, In my opinion, summaries of GCCN literatures should be included in the main manuscript for readability.
L93 reference format, 27-29
L196 more details about the growth factor parameterization and subsequent diameter conversion should be given here or in the supplement.
L203 How much of the underestimate for dust under different RH conditions should be discussed here

We thank the reviewers for the feedback to help improve the manuscript. We are now submitting a revised manuscript where improvements have been made based on their valuable suggestions. Below please find the original reviewer comments and our responses following the words "Response:".

Referee: 1

Comments to the Author
The authors present a first analysis of extensive airborne in situ measurements during two field campaigns focusing on giant cloud condensation nuclei. The composition of collected cloud water is compared to measured particle concentrations. The relations are tested using linear regression models. The study falls into the scope of Environ. Sci. Atmos. and is scientifically sound, correctly mentioning the possible shortcomings and possible further needed studies.

Two minor comments might need to be adressed before publication:
1. How exactly where the cloud tops/bottoms defined? What is the reason/ for 0.02 g cm^-3 LWC threshold?

Response: We have addressed this suggestion with the following added text:

“The LWC criteria for in-cloud sampling is based on past work using the same value to discriminate between cloud and cloud-free air.54-56 This criteria was also used to define cloud base and top heights during vertical slant profiles.”

Note that we also had this text before:
“Cloud top height was determined using slant profiles and knowledge of when LWC transitioned from above to below 0.02 g m-3.”

2. Figure 3 needs to be explained in more detail. Is this the average over all flights? Or a single profile? There are clearly some features (e.g., peaks at 300 m (Fig. 3a), at 1000-1500 m (Fig. 3b), and at around 1000 m (Fig. 3c)). What do these features represent?

Response: We clarified in the Figure 3 caption that these profiles are from all flights:

“Fig. 3. Vertical distribution of particle number concentration with dry diameter above 1 µm (N>1) based on cumulative data from a) MONARC, b) ACTIVATE winter, and c) ACTIVATE summer. The shaded area is between the 25th and 75th percentile and the black line represents the median.”

The features the reviewer is referring to do not appear to reveal any significant event(s) or phenomenon of note as they are just part of the dataset. As the figure is meant to simply qualitatively show typical number concentrations and seasonal/regional differences, we feel no additional text is needed about these features.

Additionally, some suggestions concerning formatting, mainly in the reference sections, are provided in the attached file.

Response: We have addressed those minor comments in the pdf in the revisions, most of which involved minor touch-ups to the reference list. We did our best to stick to the journal template for references and the requested changes fall slightly outside the template style. However, all the comments were related to editorial style and presumably the journal will assist with any final touch-ups needed based on how they prefer the cosmetics to look.


Referee: 2

Comments to the Author
This word reported valuable aircraft datasets of cloud water chemical compositions and Giant CCN concentrations measured in different seasons and ocean regions, which can be useful for studies of GCCN-cloud interactions. The analysis also provided some qualitative clues into this poorly understood topic. However, too much abbreviations affects the reading and review, thus suggest authors use less, for example there is no need to use abbreviation for water vapor mixing ratio.

Response: It is hard in our view to remove all acronyms/abbreviations as it becomes very tedious to right out long strings of words for mission names and GCCN for instance. We feel it is quite common to use the acronyms that we did. However, in some cases we did try to trim some abbreviations such as with WVMR (water vapor mixing ratio) and CTH (cloud top height).

I only have some specific comments listed below:
Specific comments:
L63, In my opinion, summaries of GCCN literatures should be included in the main manuscript for readability.

Response: We put the summary (previously Section S1) into the article file as suggested.

L93 reference format, 27-29

Response: Fixed

L196 more details about the growth factor parameterization and subsequent diameter conversion should be given here or in the supplement.

Response: We cited the key references where the parameterizations are introduced if readers want to refer to them. We also added text discussing the usage of our chosen parameterization and its sensitivity as compared to other existing parameterizations:

“This method has been applied in past studies, one of which showed that compared to other parameterizations existing in the literature59 that the percent difference in final dry diameter when using ambient Dp values between 3 and 10 µm at 90% RH was ≤3%.60”

L203 How much of the underestimate for dust under different RH conditions should be discussed here
Response: The hygroscopicity of dust is very complicated as noted in the literature, and this prevents us from any robust discussion of the actual underestimate for dust as the reviewer desired. We added the following text:
“As it is difficult to generalize the hygroscopicity of dust particles65, it is not possible to quantify how much of an underestimate in dry diameter occurs for dust under different RH conditions.”

04-Jun-2022

Dear Dr Sorooshian:

Manuscript ID: EA-ART-05-2022-000049.R1
TITLE: Relationships between supermicrometer particle concentrations and cloud water sea salt and dust concentrations: Analysis of MONARC and ACTIVATE data

Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript to Environmental Science: Atmospheres. I am pleased to accept your manuscript for publication in its current form. I have copied any final comments from the reviewer(s) below.

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With best wishes,

Dr Tzung-May Fu
Associate Editor
Environmental Science: Atmospheres
Royal Society of Chemistry

Reviewer 2

All comments have been addressed properly, and I have no further comments.