Comparison of Scanning LiDAR with Other Remote Sensing Measurements and Transport Model Predictions for a Saharan Dust Case
, Frank Wagner 1,2, Harald Saathoff 1, Heike Vogel 1, Gholamali Hoshyaripour 1, Vanessa Bachmann 2, Jochen Förstner 2 and Thomas Leisner 1Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is well and fluently written. Minor revision are needed!
Details:
Page 1, line 20: What about INPs? KIT is famous for all the INP AIDA work!
Page 1, line 33 – Page, line 71: I find the paragraph too long, too many general statements. Simply too long. Better keep this paragraph short, and state clearly what the contribution of this arcticle is.
Page 3, lines 101-105, AERONET is not able to provide trustworthy lidar ratios and depolarization ratios as is shown in many papers because the 180 degree scattering angle is not covered by sunphotometer observations and the shape of the dust particles is non-spheroidal, but the spheroidal shape is assumed in the AERONET retrievals and causes large uncertainties.
Page 3, lines 137-138: DWD stands for…? DELiRA stands for…? KASCAL stands for…? The abbreviations must be explained here…. to introduce them on page 16 is inacceptable, too late.
Page 4, line 148: Is KIT the owner of KASCAL? Is MO Hohenpeissenberg the owner of DWD-DELiRA? It should be explained!
Page 4, line 159: Similar systems, but DELiRA seems to have more laser power. How much ... 50 mJ per pulse? Please state!
Page 4, please provide a value for depol(molecular). I mean, what do you assume in the data analysis?
Figure 1: To be in harmony with other x-axis text, please write: Backscatter coefficient (not Coefficient).
Figure 2: Lidar ratio [sr] not: Ratio, not: Sr
Figure 4 (left): What means: ElasticVerticalLow and ElasticSlantLow… Please explain!
Figure 4 (right): Why are the lidar ratio solutions different (Raman Vertical vs Raman Slant).
Figure 5 (left): The different analysis boxes are almost no visible…! Please improve!
Figure 5 (right): x-axis: Mm-1 sr-1 , not Sr-1
Page 9, line 330: What does that mean: 1.01? Absolute agreement between model and observation?
Figure 6: Please state clearly in Fig.6a and 6c, what lidar is used, KASCAL or DELiRA
What is the difference between 6a and 6b? The same for 6c vs 6d? What is the differenc e between 6c and 6d?
Page 11, line 389: Why do you make use of 340 nm AOD, and not of 380 nm AOD? I would expect that the 380nm AOD values are more trustworthy.
Page 11, line 404: particle depol ratios of 0.33 at 355 nm! IMPOSSIBLE! In Karsruhe, you should never be able to observe values above 0.25 at 355 nm. Close to dust source regions you may find 0.29 or 0.3, but never larger values!
Figure8: In the figure, the volume depol ratio at 7-8 km height ist 0.05 to 0.06. This is very large. Usually, the reference values is close to 0.01 or 0.02 at 355 nm for Raymetrics systems…. So, 0.05-0.06 is probably wrong, and may be the reason for the derived particle depol value of 0.33.
Figure 8(left): The solutions for the particle depol ratios are very noisy and thus not very trustworthy. The volume depol ratios are convincing! What happened in the computation of the particle depol ratios? What is the reason for the large noise?
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
- A discussion note on suggestions for how to integrate these results, especially the vertical profiles, into chemical transport modeling coupled with dust productions and advection in the region. what's more, A discussion note on how to improve the model performace. There is a significant difference between the observed and model results according to the comparison in Fig.11
- How much is the data inversion error of the two lidar systems? Including systematic errors, errors caused by parameter assumptions (i.e. lidar ratio) in the inversion process, etc. it should be specified precisely.
- In data comparison (model and observation, between two lidars), it is recommended to list detailed comparison differences in a table (mean, root mean square error, etc.)
- When calculating AOD, how to deal with the data in the lidar blind zone?
- The description of the two lidar systems should be improved, such as instrument structure, overlap correction.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
