Estimation of the Mass Concentration of Volcanic Ash Using Ceilometers: Study of Fresh and Transported Plumes from La Palma Volcano

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is well done and almost ready for publication. The description of the tools used, the methodology and the reasoning of the results are very clear. I just add 2 small comments to make the article even clearer:

 

1) it is necessary to describe better the caption in figure 1. The details are well presented in section 2, but the caption is not very explanatory.

2) I think it is better to split figure 3 into 2 different figures, arranging the units of measurement well and explaining the legend colors well (pink line?)

 

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

P3, Line 97 "fine and coarse"

I recommend to indicate typical size for fine and coarse. (Threshould is shown later.)

 

P4, Fig.2 caption

"ba" is inseted between "b" and "batt".

 

P5, Equation(1)

Please explain parameter a.

P5, Line 167

Please explain s^-1 _back.

 

P6, Line 216 0.41+-0.13,

Unit for the values is mm?

P6, Line 222

I cannot understand the meaning of "fine".

 

P8, Line 241

2 -> Fig.2

P8, Line 262

AT -> At

P8, Line 268

Delete "As it was described in Sec. 2".

 

P9, Figure 4

I recommend to add data scale for X-axis.

 

P10, Line 303

I cannot understand "These results concord with tropomi S02 emissions estimation.". Please explain.

P10, Line 310 "During this period, several ash emissions in the lower troposphere were measured."

Does this text describe that large d value correspond to ash emission?

 

P11, Line 353

Please explain r_eff. 

P11, Table 2

The values in Table 2 are averaged and deviation?

Which days are indicated by "Selected days (Line 356)"?

 

P12, Line 372-373

Mass concentrations are smilar. How about distances from the volcanoes? Mass concentration decreases according to ditance from volcano.

P12, Line 395-396

I cannot understand "the air-masses during these days where transported more efficiently to the center-south of the island than to the center-north part".

 

P14, Fig. 7 caption

in -> In

right -> left

left -> right

P14, Line 460

I wonder "1x10^-3" may be "1x10^-6" according to the Fig.7.

 

P15 "Conclusion"

Text for the conclusion is too long. This could be compressed to less than half.

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The pee-reviewed manuscript is devoted to the study of optical properties of volcanic aerosol and tracking the spatiotemporal evolution of the aerosol cloud generated by the eruption of the La Palma volcano. For this purpose, the authors proposed to apply their own approach, which combines the use of observational data obtained using various instruments.

In my opinion, the methodological part of the article has been worked out very well and is presented in sufficient detail. The analysis of the results was done very competently and quite correctly. The results themselves are quite new and interesting for the readers of the journal.

By way of comments, I would like to point out the following.

The study of optical properties of volcanic aerosols and the prediction of the evolution of volcanic plume are of critical importance for civil aviation. It would be very good if the authors noted this in the text of the article. Sulphate aerosol does indeed affect the radiation balance of the atmosphere, as it partly reflects short-wave solar radiation back into space. But in order for a volcanic cloud to affect the thermal regime of the atmosphere, its optical depth must be significant for an extended period of time. This fact should also be noted in the text.

Did the authors try to compare the obtained (calculated) optical depth of the aerosol cloud with the optical depth calculated via simple parametrization formula suggested by Hansen et al. [1]. Such a comparison would be very helpful.

I also propose to update the abstract, in which it is necessary to state the purpose of the article very clearly. Also in the abstract the phrase “This study presents a synergistic approach to the aerosol optical and ….” should be slightly modified. The approach not for aerosol… properties, but for the study of aerosol properties.  

 [1]. Sato M., Hansen J.E., McCormick M.P., Pollack J.B. Stratospheric aerosol optical depth, 1850–1990 // J. Geo[1]phys. Res. 1993. V. 98. P. 22987–22994

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf