Optical and Geometrical Properties of Cirrus Clouds over the Tibetan Plateau Measured by LiDAR and Radiosonde Sounding during the Summertime in 2014

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Ms. Joss Chen and authors of the paper proposed for publication in “Remote Sensing” entitled “Optical and Geometrical Properties of Cirrus Clouds over Tibetan Plateau Measured by Lidar and Radiosonde Sounding at the Summertime in 2014” 

The subject of the paper is interesting and a valuable information is reported about cirrus clouds in this important geographical region. This clouds are particularly important due they are composed principally by ice crystals. The instruments used for the study (Lidar and Radiosounding) are the most used and suitable techniques to study cirrus clouds. I agree with and highly recommend the publication of this paper, but I noted some minors errors or suggestions below. Also, I have three main scientific concern related with the results that the authors need to overcome for the final version. 

Suggestions:

Introduction:

Line 83: What do you mean for the first time? (Lidar measurements, cirrus clouds studies in this region) because a report from He et all, 2013, show similar results like you for the same region and also with lidar instrument measurement from the ground.

Section 3 

Line 158: why the title contain subsection, I recommend to delete this word.

Line 165: what mean P and S? I think it is for the polarización component, I suggest to add in the text.

Line 167: How do you define backscatter ratio? I think you should include in the text de definition.

I think you need to define the used subindex in the formulae 

Section 4

Line 264 - 269: I think the reported values are the mean values of different variables (cloud base, cloud top, the linear depolarization ratio) please fix it.

Figure 2: I recommend to collocate the names of the figures (a, b, c) outside the graphics, because the names is between the information.

Line 356: Plat et al., which year?

Line 358: Wang and Sassen which year?

Lines 390 - 393, what tropopause data did you use? Did you get it from data provider, or you calculate the height of the tropopause? I think you should explain where the tropopause value come and their definition.

Section 5

Line 432 and 432: I suggest you to be more specific in this conclusion and you could add to the sentence some words regarding to the experiment TIPEX III or the time. Eg. ...over the Tibetan Plateau during TIPEX III. or ...over the Tibetan Plateau during 5 weeks between July 10 and August 16, 2014.  

I have three main scientific concern:

1 - The specular reflection from the ice crystal in cirrus clouds, It is a practical and demostrable that specular reflection from cirrus clouds affect the calculation of the optical properties of cirrus clouds. To avoid this problem the lidar axis is tilted 5 degree from the nadir. How do you prevent it in your study? I think this affect your results regarding to optical properties.

2 - Lines 305 - 327: the discussion about the frequency of occurrence of cirrus cloud types, is not well noted, I think you need to clarify or explain, what is this frequency? You have measured during three interval each day (not explained in the paper, (I read this information in Song et al., 2017) but you only select the night time measurements with concurrent radiosonde sounding. So, Do you have not measured cirrus clouds present during this period (5 weeks), as you mentioned some lower clouds are present and it is not possible to measure high clouds. Is the frequency relative or absolute frequency? Is there sampling problems affecting the results?

Also, I have a doubt: the period of the WACAL observation in TIPEX III was between 8 July and 15 August (Song et al., 2017), So, why did you show in your paper the dataset from July 10 to August 16?

3 - How do you calculate the “Cloud radiative forcing (CRF)”? You should explain how did you calculate this quantity. Or you only calculate the OLR? I also recommend you to change the name to “Cloud Radiative effect (CRF)”, it si recommended by the ICCP report. The CRE or former CRF is calculated by the net flux differences with and without presence of cirrus clouds. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Thank you for your review of our manuscript. We greatly appreciate the substantial amount of time and effort that you dedicated to this review process.

We have revised the manuscript according to your comments and the response is also attached in this file. The marked-up manuscript version showing the changes made is also provided at the end of the PDF file. We think that we have addressed all the comments and we would like to submit and upload our revised manuscript.

Please find the attachment.

In order to facilitate access to the response and the marked-up manuscript, the corresponding page number ranges are listed below and you can also link to the corresponding section by clicking the hyperlink:

1.     Response to Reviewer 1: Page 2 - Page 5;

2.     Response to Reviewer 2: Page 6 - Page 8;

3.     Response to Reviewer 3: Page 9 - Page 13;

4.     Marked-up manuscript version: Page 14 - Page 33.

Thanks again.

Kind regards,

Guangyao Dai

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

See an attached PDF file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

Thank you for your review of our manuscript. We greatly appreciate the substantial amount of time and effort that you dedicated to this review process.

We have revised the manuscript according to your comments and the response is also attached in this file. The marked-up manuscript version showing the changes made is also provided at the end of the PDF file. We think that we have addressed all the comments and we would like to submit and upload our revised manuscript.

Please find the attachment.

In order to facilitate access to the response and the marked-up manuscript, the corresponding page number ranges are listed below and you can also link to the corresponding section by clicking the hyperlink:

1.     Response to Reviewer 1: Page 2 - Page 5;

2.     Response to Reviewer 2: Page 6 - Page 8;

3.     Response to Reviewer 3: Page 9 - Page 13;

4.     Marked-up manuscript version: Page 14 - Page 33.

Thanks again.

Kind regards,

Guangyao Dai

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments concerning manuscript 425339:

This manuscript, “Optical and Geometrical Properties of Cirrus Clouds over the Tibetan Plateau Measured by Lidar and Radiosonde Sounding at the Summertime in 2014” describes a research effort performed in China that attempts to measure the properties of a small subset of cirrus clouds.


The manuscript is in need of considerable repair; primarily, due to problems with the English language.  I will try to list some (but, not all) of these problems along with some questions concerning unclear text:

Line 4 – in the title, I think the last phrase “at the Summertime in 2014” would be better as:  “during the Summertime of 2014”

Line 31 – to what does the phrase “temperature anomaly” refer?

Line 32 – “and it has” would be better if “as to its”

Line 34 – after “calculated” “…with the Fu-Liou model and is shown to increase…”

Line 47 – insert “a” after produce; insert “the” before IPCC

Line 50 – first phrase in sentence would be better if:  “Because of the essential role that cirrus clouds play, …”

Line 54 – last phrase in sentence would be better if:  “…lidar can contribute much to solving…”

Line 63 – sentence would read better if:  “The evaluation of the optical depth of cirrus clouds has been accomplished through the application of different methods which have been described in the literature.”  And, at the end of the sentence, there should be several references listed that pertain to what has gone before…

Line 72 – the phase that begins “where” makes no sense…

Line 110 – delete “up”

Line 111 – “separated” should be “separate”…

Line 113 – the phrase “76 L-band” does not make sense…

Line 117 – the phase “absolutely cover” does not make sense…

Line 121 – the last part of the sentence that begins on this line does not make sense.

Line 125 – the term “altitude map” would probably be better as “elevation map” or “relief map”…and in the parends:  “(The elevation data were downloaded from…)”

Line 130 – at the end of the line:  delete “the” so that “…, simultaneous observations…are obtained.”

Line 132 – what does the term “almost at nighttime” mean?

Line 138 – in the figure caption, the phrase “representing the Qindao” would be better of it reads:  “shows the location of Qindao”…

Section 3 – I am not sure all of the equations are necessary because they have already, presumably, been presented in an earlier paper by the authors.

Line 141 – to what does “in this channel” refer?

Line 142 – this sentence fragment needs re-writing for clarity and needs to be un-indented after the equation…

Line 149 – sentence does not make sense…

Line 154 – does “…at high level” refer to a high altitude? Or?

Line 158 – I believe that the word “subsection” needs to be removed…

Equation 3 – what is the term on the left-hand side of the equation”

Line 185 –the phase “…based on the pioneered measurement…” needs to be rewritten…

Line 191 – the sentence that begins on this line is unclear…

Line 229 – the phrase “…through some subsequent modifications” does not make sense…

Line 284 – the sentence that begins on this line (Figure 3…) seems to be incorrect – that particular panel in the figure seems to show cloud height with date…

Line 341 – the phrase “…with irregular structures may initiate…” does not make sense

Line 356 – reference number and date needed…also, this sentence does not make sense – should be re-written…

Line 358 – Wang and Sassen needs date and reference number and is the equation attributed to them or ???

Line 362 – the word “correlation” is inappropriate here…

Line 378 – this parenthetical expression that begins the sentence in incomplete/unclear…

Line 386 – figure caption would read better if after “ratio” the following phrase is used:  “as a function of cirrus-top temperature at 10°C intervals.”

Line 396 – this sentence should be re-worded – “cirrus presence” and “cirrus blank” are awkward terms…

Section 4.4 – this discussion needs to be re-written regarding those dates where there is a lack of cirrus clouds – in figure, just above the label “07-28”, according to the discussion, is a period where there are no cirrus clouds; yet, there are two days where there are clouds and temperatures are cooler.  And, not sure how the discussion at the end of that paragraph applies…

Line 429 – the word “corrections” is wrong…

Also, there needs to be consistency regarding use of references using author names, dates, and reference number – in some cases, only the number is sufficient; however, where a name is given I believe that the date should also be shown along with the number (for example, see line 185 and line 188). 

Is the use of elevation in terms of above ground level (AGL) and above sea level (ASL) consistent and well documented as to what is meant at various places in the manuscript?  For example ASL is used to discuss the location of clouds in the Abstract and elsewhere (e.g., line 288) it is AGL.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thank you for your review of our manuscript. We greatly appreciate the substantial amount of time and effort that you dedicated to this review process.

We have revised the manuscript according to your comments and the response is also attached in this file. The marked-up manuscript version showing the changes made is also provided at the end of the PDF file. We think that we have addressed all the comments and we would like to submit and upload our revised manuscript.

Please find the attachment.

In order to facilitate access to the response and the marked-up manuscript, the corresponding page number ranges are listed below and you can also link to the corresponding section by clicking the hyperlink:

1.     Response to Reviewer 1: Page 2 - Page 5;

2.     Response to Reviewer 2: Page 6 - Page 8;

3.     Response to Reviewer 3: Page 9 - Page 13;

4.     Marked-up manuscript version: Page 14 - Page 33.

Thanks again.

Kind regards,

Guangyao Dai

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

in attached document....

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Many thanks for your time in reviewing our revised manuscript. For sure your comments improved the quality of our manuscript significantly. Hereby I upload the responses to your three scientific concerns. Please be aware that the AR_round2 in the dark-blue color is the final response. The marked-up manuscript is also attached at the end of the PDF file. Please find the attachment.

Kind regards,

Guangyao Dai

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf