Doppler Sodar Measured Winds and Sea Breeze Intrusions over Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E), India

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Technically, the article is improved over the first version.   Substantive notes to the text: 1) There is still no indication of novelty in the article - please write it in Abstract and Introduction. 2) The Introduction still lacks reference to implementations.   Technical notes to the text 1) The article still lacks a chapter - Methodology. 2) The citation source for Figures 3-19 is still missing, it should be [own research]. 3) Figure 3(i) should not be marked as Figure 3a, Figure 3(ii) should be Figure 3b, Figure 3(iii) should be Figure 3c - please change it. 4) Figures 4-13 should be corrected as above - point 2). 5) Figures 15-18, mark a), b), …   After following the above-mentioned tips, your article can be published.

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Manuscript ID: Sustainability-2359401

Title: Doppler Sodar Measured Winds and Sea-breeze Intrusions over Gadanki (13.5⁰ N, 79.2⁰ E), India

 

 

1. Technically, the article is improved over the first version

 

Authors’ response:

Thanks to the potential reviewer for his/her kind words that my article quality has improved compared to first version.   

 

Substantive notes to the text 

1. There is still no indication of novelty in the article - please write it in Abstract and Introduction

 

Authors’ response:

Thanks to the potential reviewer for this comment. The re-revised research paper has included novelty of the present work, in both abstract and introduction sections.   ???

 

 

1. The Introduction still lacks reference to implementations   

 

Authors’ response:

Thanks to the potential reviewer for this comment. The re-revised research paper has included citation source.  ???

 

Technical notes to the text 

1. The article still lacks a chapter – Methodology

 

Authors’ response:

Thanks to the potential reviewer for this significant comment. The re-revised research paper has included a methodology section (section 2), wherein we have discussed how sodar data were processed as well as co-located weather station data and ERA5 model data.  

 

1. The citation source for Figures 3-19 is still missing, it should be [own research]

 

Authors’ response:

Thanks to the potential reviewer for this comment. The re-revised research paper has included citation source.

 

 

1. Figure 3(i) should be marked as Figure 3a, Figure 3(ii) should be Figure 3b, Figure 3(iii) should be Figure 3c - please change it

 

Authors’ response:

Thanks to the potential reviewer for this comment. In the re-revised research paper, changes have been made.  

 

 

1. Figures 4-13 should be corrected as above - point 2)

 

 

 

Authors’ response:

Thanks to the potential reviewer for this comment. In the re-revised research paper, changes have been done. 

 

 

1. Figures 15-18, mark a), b), …   

 

Author's response:

Thanks to the potential reviewer for this comment. In the re-revised research paper, changes have been done. 

 

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Firstly i have concerns if this journal is suitable for this specific manuscript.  One more related to atmospheric / meteorological studies is definitely more suitable.

secondly the innovative elements of the work are not immediately visible, other than implementing methodologies to a largely not well studies region of the world.

thirdly, the comments made by the reviewers on the initial submission largely stand, the study needs a major overhaul to highlight its strengths.

 

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Manuscript ID: Sustainability-2359401

 

Title: Doppler Sodar Measured Winds and Sea-breeze Intrusions over Gadanki (13.5⁰ N, 79.2⁰ E), India

1. Firstly I have concerns if this journal is suitable for this specific manuscript.  One more related to atmospheric / meteorological studies is definitely more suitable

 

Authors’ response:

Thanks for the kind suggestion. However, this decision is left to the editor, who has to decide whether the present paper is a good fit for the Journal of Sustainability. Therefore, the authors may not comment on this question raised by the potential reviewer.  

 

1. Secondly, the innovative elements of the work are not immediately visible, other than implementing methodologies to a largely not well studies region of the world

 

Authors’ response:

Thanks for the kind suggestion. The present study has indeed used only a few months’ data that we have also highlighted in the conclusion section under future studies. However, in the re-revised version of the paper, we have added a few important points (how sea breezes trigger precipitation) that would grab the attention of the readers based on its innovation.     

 

 

 

 

 

1. Thirdly, the comments made by the reviewers on the initial submission largely stand, the study needs a major overhaul to highlight its strengths.

 

Authors’ response:  

Thanks for the kind suggestion. We would like to bring to the kind notice of the potential reviewer that

 

1. We have implemented approximately 50 suggestions provided by all four potential reviewers and those corrections are kept in an 18 page report as part of the first review
2. In this re-review paper also, we have provided our answers to several new comments raised by the potential reviewers 
3. A schematic model is included in the re-revised paper that explains how sea-breeze triggers precipitation through a graphical demonstration that would surely grab the attention of a layman
4. Most importantly, we stressed in the conclusion section that six-month data may not be sufficient to comprehend the entire evolution of wind climatologies over complex terrains, which is the major issue with our research study
5. However, we strongly believe that new physics has been revealed as far as the sea breeze and associated precipitation studies are concerned, due to the fact that the present Doppler sodar is located in a complex terrain.   

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 4)

The authors have addressed my comments from the previous version. I recommend the manuscript.

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Manuscript ID: Sustainability-2359401

Title: Doppler Sodar Measured Winds and Sea-breeze Intrusions over Gadanki (13.5⁰ N, 79.2⁰ E), India

1. The authors have addressed my comments from the previous version. I recommend the manuscript.

 

Authors’ response:

Great thanks to the potential reviewer for the kind recommendation of my paper in this journal. We really appreciate this potential reviewer effort that surely enhanced the quality of my paper many times.   

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

some of the concerns have been partially addressed

Again the novel / innovative elements of the work are not clearly addressed and are immediately evident.

 

Author Response

Reviewer’s Comments and Responses of the Authors

 

Manuscript ID: Sustainability-2453361

 

Title: Doppler Sodar Measured Winds and Sea-breeze Intrusions over Gadanki (13.5⁰ N, 79.2⁰ E), India

 

 

1. Some of the concerns have been partially addressed

 

Authors’ response:

Thanks to the potential reviewer for this comment. The re-revised paper has kept innovative aspects of this research and we strongly believe that now it has completed in all aspects.   

 

 

1. Again the novel / innovative elements of the work are not clearly addressed and are immediately evident.

 

Authors’ response:

Thanks to the potential reviewer for this comment. 

1. To understand the monsoon circulation every month, the present work would come under innovative research in that it uses high-resolution data on winds
2. Since sea-breeze intrusion is a synoptic scale wind mechanism and its consequences could be seen from the coast to nearby stations, the atmospheric dynamical and thermodynamical parameters might provide details about precipitation and thunderstorms on different stations. By keeping those aspects in mind, we have evaluated skew-T log-p diagrams using radiosonde ascent data over a nearby location to Gadanki, i.e., Chennai, India, and further reported about interesting physics behind sea-breeze intrusions and thunderstorms.      
3. This important data analysis has revealed novel/innovative research that was part of the re-revised paper.     

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

The comments provided by the authors covered the issues raised. is recommended for publication subject to language reviews and properly identifying images suitability

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

Summary: This manuscript shows observations from a sodar, a weather station and ERA-Interim model to indicate the valley wind structure and sea breezes over a relatively complex terrain in India, quite far from the coastline. Overall, the results are interesting, but not very well explained, the conclusions remain on a speculative level. Also, the results are presented in a quite repetitive way, and some of it may be removed. At this point, there are many questions that should be answered before this manuscript is ready for publication.

Major points:

1)      It is unclear to me why this paper has been to a journal called sustainability? In a meteorologically-oriented journal the manuscript would fit better.

2)      Over what time period are the sodar winds averaged when shown? Or are just the 27s output shown in all figures? It remains quite unclear how the data was processed. Also, we do not get much information on the weather station that is used.

3)      We do not know the valley characteristics very well (the figure of the study area does not reveal much, this needs to be improved), but conclusions were made that valley channeling was not found. However, the figures 3e and 3f clearly show northeasterly direction which looks like this is along the valley. Perhaps, the sodar lowest range is too low for the valley depth?

4)      The authors have chosen to show all months from July through December. Some months are similar however. Perhaps for readability it would be better to omit months that showed similar observations.

5)      While I understand the reason of using ERA-Interim model, the scale is quite large (80 km as far as this reviewer is concerned) compared to the scales of the phenomena studied. The phenomena does not seem to be visible from the figures presented, but this could also be from the (poor) quality of the figures. Perhaps the authors could show with ERA5 (~30 km grid spacing) or perform their own mesoscale simulations.

6)      Lots of weird phrases and some of the conclusions are questionable. Please explain better. See below for details.

Minor points:

L. 23. What kind of station? A weather station?

Abstract. Results in the abstract should be written in past tense. Please change.

L. 77. “difficult”. What is meant with this?

L. 78. Not sure what “(a local phenomenon)” is doing here. Please remove.

Line 126 and more. There are many instances where “Figure” is written as “Figureure”. Please change to the correct word.

Figure 1. The overview map is not very clear. Also, for a paper that is aimed to address both sea breezes and mountain winds, there should be some better notion of where the observational site is located relative to the sea and to the valley. Please show a better map (e.g., a terrain relief map, rather than google earth) that addresses both. Preferably not google earth, because this is not showing much terrain elevation change. If a bigger map reduces the visibility of local terrain, then the authors could provide an additional zoom over the area. Also, this overview map should clearly indicate where the sodar and surface stations were located with respect to the valley and ocean.

Figure 2a-f. The numbering is quite unconventional as the figure 2 spans three pages with text in between. I suggest to either put all wind roses in one figure. Otherwise, if the authors insists on having separated figures, figure 2b should be called figure 3, etc. Also, more importantly, it is not clear what times were used for the figure: all hours within the month shown?

L. 162-175. Only maximum winds are discussed, but what about wind speed averages? 

L. 168. “were distributed … large”. What does this phrase mean?

L. 183-203. What is the valley depth?

L. 191. How was the channeling effect not present? Was the valley depth too shallow to actually have observations of this? Isn’t the “channeling” shown in the northeasterly directions of figure 3?

L. 195-203. Sodar measurements are affected by rainfall. So, how are the potentially troublesome measurements performed during monsoon periods actually addressed?

Figure 3. The sunset and sunrise times should have a range rather than a single line since this figure spans a period of 31 days. Same for the other figures 3. Are the data shown averages for all days in each month? What was the uncertainty? Are the wind directions from vector average?

Figure 3b. Why are there so much fewer lines in lower left panel for wind speed than for wind direction?

L. 228. “surface”. This is at 60 m above ground level, and so cannot be name surface wind.

L. 230-233. These sentences do not read well, and I’m not sure what the message is that is conveyed. Please improve.

L. 237. Again, what is “diurnal dominance”?

L. 240. “disturbing nature”. What does this mean?

L. 265. What is “thermalizing”?

L. 279-280. Why does a LLJ form in july, but not in the other months? The other months have longer nights, no? This also should be said in the section where July is discussed.

L. 288-290. How were the case studies selected? Did they exceed some threshold? The authors must show some reasoning and objective behind why a certain case study was selected.

L. 310-321. While I think this analysis is in principle not wrong, it would be better to show dew point temperature instead of relative humidity, as this would show a cleaner result.

Figure 5. Is this the same location as the sodar? It is unclear.

Figures 6-8. These figures are extremely unclear. What are the colored lines? And are the black lines the coast?

L. 363. “prime responsibility”. Or is it an effect? It remains unclear.

English language seems OK. At this stage, it is more crucial to focus on structure and flow of the paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

Technically the article is weak.   Substantive notes to the text: 1) The subject matter of the article is very ambitious, for which I would like to thank the Authors. 2) What is new in the article? – please write it in Abstract and Introduction. 3) In the Introduction, please refer to implementations.   Technical notes to the text 1) The article should be divided into classic chapters - please change it. 2) Please provide the source of the citation for Table and Figure - own research? 3) Figure 2a should be Figure 2a, 2b, 2c. 4) Figure 2b should be Figure 3a, 3b, 3c - and so on for all Figures. 5) First, in the text we recall Figure, and then we insert Figure - perform for all ...   After following the above-mentioned tips, your article can be published.

Reviewer 3 Report

interesting experimental wok on sea breeze circulation. Some comments below:

1. Some initial literature review could be removed, especially those not directly of relevance to the scope of the work.

2. the scientific innovation and unique scope of the work is not immediately evident. besides presenting data the work needs strengthening in its scope and even some evidence based assessment of the collected data.

3. a section describing the methodological framework, assumptions and any related info is desperately missing.

4. is really not clear what is the scope of 4.1 within the SBC context. Also is not clear why averaged wind info assessment is suitable for SBC rather than individual events.

5. Plot with wind direction exhibiting such large shifts (through out) are obviously a inadequate interpretation of the circular property of wind.

6. how suitable is the ERA-I with an 80km spatial resolution in respect to the phenomena studied.

overall is not clear out of the few months statistical analysis only one event was analysed with coarse resolution data. and not any specific comments are generated with respect to the collected data or physical properties that account for SBC

Reviewer 4 Report

In this manuscript, the authors presented the field study in Gadanki (13.50 N, 79.20 E), India. They did report the field observation and it will be interesting to the readers of JMSE. In my opinion, the field measurement will justify the value of this manuscript. In my opinion, this manuscript could be accepted after revision.

(1) There are several obvious typos in the manuscript. I marked some in the attached copy.

(2) I would suggest the authors highlight the research gaps and highlight the new contributions in the section "Introduction".

(3) I would suggest the authors to add some recent publications (last 3 years)

(4) Limitation of the research outcomes may need to point out at the end "conclusions".

(5) I understand that the authors may not share their data to public. However, I would suggest the authors at least share the data used in the figures. Then, readers can reproduce their field measurement for the validation of the numerical simulation in the future.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The English expressions need to be checked closely. There are  a few obvious typos as I marked in the attached copy. The authors may look for the help from MDPI editing service if it is necessary.