Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments 

The manuscript “Observation of cloud base height and precipitation characteristics at a polar site Ny-Alesund, Svalbard using ground-based
remote sensing and model reanalysis” has an interesting topic. However, although the manuscript is generally easy to follow, I have some
reservations. 

1. I think that the Introduction do not reflect very well the importance of this research. It should point out what is intended to be done and
   why that is important, and how it fits in the state of the art.
2. The presentation should be more polished (see the technical corrections for examples, but there are more). Also, some Figures have
   relatively low quality (Fig. 2) or font is too small (Fig. 6).
3. Data and methodology section only explains the data, but nothing about the methodology.
4. A very important issue is the use of one station. Is this stations representative of all polar sites? If so, how can the authors prove this? If not, why is important to study this specific site? The authors may consider adding more polar sites to make the research more robust.
5. Results and discussion: I think that this section lacks precisely the part of discussion. I miss some comments about other works: do they
   report similar results? What can be de discrepancies/similarities due to?

 
Technical correcctions 

• L82,83: by [] –> by {authors} []
• Figure 2 needs a bit more resolution and Y-axis label should be a bit more separated.
• L141 are -> is
• L145. by has several spaces after it.
• L149-153. Some information is repeated.
• L189. Citation in a different style.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

• General comments

This manuscript presents various analyses of observations of cloud base height (CBH) characteristics measured using the data obtained from the ceilometer at the Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard. The manuscript focuses on the monthly and seasonal characteristics of CBH at the observation site, and in particular, the study comparing second and third CBH together is interesting. It is recommended to clarify the acquisition and process of data used in the study. Since the monthly average of CBH will have a large variance, it is necessary to confirm the statistical significance in the differences between the averages when comparing the monthly and seasonal distributions of CBHs. Additional supplements are needed to enhance the completeness of the manuscript, such as the omission of periods, omission of parentheses, typos, and incorrect reference formats in the manuscript. I would suggest comparing CBH measured from the ceilometer to those measured from CALIPSO and CloudSat.

 

• Specific comments

* Acronyms/Abbreviations should be defined the first time they appear, then the authors should use the written-out form.

 - line 320, 330 and 347: "cloud base heights" should be "CBH"

 - line 315: "the lowest cloud base heights (CBH1)" -> already defined on line 305

 - line 332 and 335: "first cloud base heights" -> "CBH1"

 - Ch.2, section 1, line 96: "a.s.l." -> "elevation above sea level (asl)"

 

* Concerning the format of the references of the journal.

 - Ch.2, section 2, line 145: "Maahn et al. (2014)"

 - Ch.2, section 3, line 154: "Miloshevich et al. (2004)"

 - Ch.3, section 1, line 189: "Shupe et al., 2011"

 

* Errata

 - Ch.2, line 95: "CL 51" should be "CL51"?

 - Omission of punctuation marks (full-stop) on line 125, 168, 236 and 366

 - Ch.2, section 2, line 132: "K-band Micro Rain Radar (MMR2)" should be "K-band Micro Rain Radar (MRR2)"

 - ch3. section 4, line 298: "MMR2" -> "MRR2"

 - ch3. section 4, line 330: missing close parentheses. "(precipitation > 2 mmh-1" -> "(precipitation > 2 mmh-1)"

 - Ch.3, section 1, line 187: "80oN" -> change degree symbol

 

* Ch2. section 1, line 95: It is necessary to describe further the observation site (Gruvebadet observatory) and the acquisition process of the data. The authors should clearly state the collection source, such as whether the data was obtained on request or publicly available data. In addition, it requires a description of the CBH retrieval algorithm and subsequent data processing. At least give a reference to Vaisala Algorithm for CBH.

 

* Ch.3, section3, second paragraph and Figure 6: Is there any particular reason for using only the June 2017 data while the August 2017 data were omitted in the summer analysis?

 

* Ch.3, section4 & Ch.5 lines 449-450: It is a limited period of data (6 months) to generalize the relationship between CBH and precipitation.

 

* Ch.3, section3, Line 201: The term "cloud thickness" does not seem to be an appropriate name because it can cause misconceptions. Instead, it seems to be related to the optical thickness or cloud thinness. Also, since there may be a clear sky between CBH1 and CBH2, it may differ from the actual thickness of the cloud.

 

* Ch.3, section3, Line 203: Disagreement between text and Figure 3. The authors report that the lowest level cloud thickness attends the minimum during spring, but the minimum is winter (DJF) rather than spring (MAM), according to the blue points in Figure 3. Use different symbols and line colors to make the figure more readable.

 

* Ch.3, section 3, line 268-269: Seasonal detection rates for the CBH3 have never been presented. It would be better to present the number or percentage of CBH2/CBH3 detection by season.

 

* Ch.3 section 3, line 277-278: Figure 7 did not show seasonal characteristics, and it is difficult to say that spring (MAM) is lower than summer (JJA). Instead, it seems that March and April are pretty high.

The detection of CBH3 seems to be a critical condition for the vertical distribution of the cloud or the cloud structure. What could be the cause?

 

* Ch.3 section 6. lines 418-419: errata on line 418 ("Figure 12a" should be "Figure 14a")

The description in the text and the pictures do not match. In Figure 14a, the maximum updraft appears to be 3-7hrs and 18-24hrs more appropriate than 0-3h and 18-24hr. On the other hand, on lines 419 to 421 in the text, the authors argue that the MRR derived maximum rainfall coincides with the maximum updraft, but this is not the case. In the perspective of synoptic-scale meteorology, it is reasonable to interpret that downdrafts dominate during precipitation, and updrafts occur before or after precipitation. In synoptic meteorologists, downdrafts dominate during precipitation, and updrafts should occur before or after precipitation. In this event, it is reasonable to assume that there is an updraft right after the precipitation.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

the paper report observations of cloud base height (CBH) characteristics measured using a Vaisala CL51 ceilometer, and use precipitation observations from a Micro Rain Radar (MRR2) at the same observation site and have attempted to identify if any relationship persists between the observed CBH and precipitation intensity. The objective of this paper is clear, the method is proper, and the result can support the conclusion.  

 If the author can further analyze the relationship between cloud base height and other meteorological factors (temperature, air humidity, wind speed, etc.), it will be a more meaningful work

Figure 3 should be illustrated with a legend.  The English language still needs to be improved, especially the article punctuation and so on.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

I guess that the manuscript was sent to me as a reviewer due to my expertise in methodologies of remote sensing of cloud. However, this study does not represent any challenge of remote sensing of cloud base height or anything else.

Instead, it uses canned data of ceilometer for producing a basic climatology of cloud base heights and precipitation. The science is fairly basic, and it does not address or advance any issue of remote sensing. At best, this paper could be submitted to "Monthly Weather Review".

Therefore, I recommend against publication in "Remote Sensing".

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have replied to all my concerns and changed the manuscript
accordingly. I think now it is suited for publication, provided some corrections
are made:

• line 36: a "´" is there, unpaired.
• line 89: citation goes to 46 from 40.
• line 583: eklima.met.no is repeated twice.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Dr. Asutosh,

The revised version of the manuscript has been carefully reviewed. I am pleased to be contributing to the improvement of the quality of the article. I want to give you some minor comments about the manuscript.

1) According to The International System of Units (https://www.bipm.org/en/publications/si-brochure/),  the numerical value always precedes the unit and space is always used to separate the unit from the number. The only exceptions are the unit symbols for a degree, minute and second for plane angle. In the revised manuscript, many parts written without spaces between the numerical value and units are found. Please correct this part.

2) In the interpretation of CBH, the authors used limited data for a short period, so please state in the conclusion section that there are limitations to extend to general seasonal characteristics.

I hope that the submitted manuscript will have positive results.

Best Regards,
Young-Joo Kwon

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

I have no further comments to the authors.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

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.