A New Installation for Geomagnetic Field Monitoring at Talos Dome, a Remote Antarctic Site Away from Permanent Observatories

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The present manuscript described the first results obtained from the installation of a new magnetometer station at Talos Dome, in Antarctica. In general the paper is well written and well organized. The figures are clear and the conclusions are well supported by the discussion and observation present in the paper. In my opinion, the paper can be published after minor revisions.

 

Minor Revisions.

 

Data overview.

When you compare the fluxgates waveforms and spectra from TLD to TNB and SBA, probably a coherence analysis (considering the different LT of the stations) will make your conclusions stronger. So I encourage to select, for example, a day in which clear PC5 waves occurs and make a coherence analysis.

 

line 52: TNB is representative of Terra Nova Bay, if I remember well, not "Terra Victoria". Right? If it so, please correct.

Line 103: please correct "as most Antarctic observatories are" into "like most of the Antarctic observatories".

  

Author Response

Point 1: When you compare the fluxgates waveforms and spectra from TLD to TNB and SBA, probably a coherence analysis (considering the different LT of the stations) will make your conclusions stronger. So I encourage to select, for example, a day in which clear PC5 waves occurs and make a coherence analysis.

Response 1: The reviewer’s suggestion to perform a coherence analysis has been carried out and incorporated in the text, in the form of a new figure (Fig.11). Specifically, the following paragraph is now included at lines 304 to 315 of the main text, in section 3:

“For the disturbed day, in which simultaneous fluctuations occur, we also performed a coherence analysis between the three possible couple of stations, with 2-hours time-window at 1-hour step-size (Figure 11). We restricted the analysis to the 04-22UT time interval, when Pc5 fluctuations occur (Figures 6 and 10). It can be seen that in correspondence of the SSC at 06:37 UT the coherence is high between all the couple of stations and for the whole analysed frequency range. For the rest of the day, we note that the coherence is higher for the couple of stations TLD-TNB, which are closer with respect to TNB-SBA (Figure 1, Table 1); as expected, the coherence between TLD and SBA is the lowest, being the distance among these stations the largest. The coherence also exhibits some peaks, at discrete frequencies, in the same time intervals 12-17 UT and 20-21 UT in which power enhancements occur, as shown in Figure 10.”

Moreover, the authors have added new lines (440-442) in section 4 (Summary and discussions) have been added:

“For this disturbed day we also performed a coherence analysis which shows that simultaneous features are also highly coherent. Such synchronous, coherent events…”

Point 3, Line52: TNB is representative of Terra Nova Bay, if I remember well, not "Terra Victoria". Right? If it so, please correct

Response point3: The reviewer is right, the authors have corrected accordingly (lines 59-60).

Point4, Line 103: Please correct "as most Antarctic observatories are" into "like most of the Antarctic observatories".

Response point4, Line 104 : Done.

 "Please see the attachment." 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this manuscript, the authors proposed a new installation for geomagnetic field monitoring at Talos Dome, I have some questions:

1. I suggest the authors can list the contributions of the paper in the introduction.

2. Please detail what are the main improvements or advantages of the power supply system of Fig. 2.

3. Under normal conditions, how often does the power supply system require maintenance?

4. I wonder the possible disadvantages of the proposed station, I suggest the authors describe it.

Author Response

Point1: I suggest the authors can list the contributions of the paper in the introduction

Response 1: A list of contents has been added at the end of the introduction (lines 123-128). “In this paper we present the characteristics of the instrument and of the installation of the overall station. We also show an overview of the dataset available to date, with a comparison with in loco meteorological data. Finally, we select two days, one characterized by quiet geomagnetic conditions, the other by the occurrence of a geomagnetic storm, for a comparison with simultaneous observations from the TNB and SBA. “

Point2: Please detail what are the main improvements or advantages of the power supplì system of Fig. 2.

Response 2: Some additional information have been included (lines 141-147), favoring a deeper description of the whole system. ” This double energy source addressed to recharge batteries represents an advantage in order to reduce the eventuality of a complete stop of the station. The whole technologic architecture has been designed to operate independently during the austral winter, with a single annual intervention for maintenance and data download, to face the very low environmental temperature and to minimize the noise from the installation itself to magnetic recordings."

Point3: Under normal conditions, how often does the power supplì system require maintenance?

Response 3: In the main text, at lines 143 to 147 the authors explainthat: …”The whole technologic architecture has been designed to operate independently during the austral winter, with a single annual intervention for maintenance and data download, to face the very low environmental temperature and to minimize the noise from the installation itself to magnetic recordings."

Point4: I wonder the possible disadvantages of the proposed station, I suggest the authors describe it.

Response 4: According to the reviewer suggestion, the authors added the following lines (370-380):

“A weak aspect of the station is that it is not equipped with any remote link, so an annual intervention is necessary for data download; this feature can represent a disadvantage in that no real-time data are available. Moreover, in these conditions any possible instrumental failures occurring between two annual visits cannot be detected until the following scheduled visit, so any necessary maintenance intervention is delayed. Even during these periodic visits other possible difficulties may arise from the the unpredictable weather conditions, the realistic possibility for airplain/helicopter to fly and land and the snow accumulation that requires to raise periodically poles, panels and battery packs.”

 "Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Increasing the measuring points of the Antarctic geomagnetic field is indeed helpful to study the magnetospheric dynamics at high latitudes and the characteristics of the polar region in the Southern Hemisphere. The paper also does introduce several stations and their data characteristics in detail to evaluate the data quality from the TLD temporary station. The influence of temperature is fully considered in the design and installation of instruments and meters. However, there are still several problems in the paper.

1. Lines 22 to 24 in the paper indicate that every new instrument and device in Antarctica should be regarded as a beneficial attempt. Whether the advantages of setting up new instruments and devices at the South Pole can be demonstrated in more detail.

2. Lines 178 to 180 in the paper are semantically contradictory. Why is the ambient temperature at least - 55 ° C, and the temperature in the box of the magnetometer electronic devices not lower than - 40 ° C. And this conclusion is obtained by analyzing the data. You can make specific analysis instead of writing "analyzing the data".

3. There are few references in recent five years.

4. There are many long sentences in the paper, which cause reading difficulties. You can adjust the expression and shorten the number of words in each sentence.

5. Figures 5 to 10 are placed too densely, which makes it difficult to connect images and texts. You can adjust the position and size of the picture to make it adjacent to the text describing the picture.

Author Response

Point 1: Lines 22 to 24 in the paper indicate that every new instrument and device in Antarctica should be regarded as a beneficial attempt. Whether the advantages of setting up new instruments and devices at the South Pole can be demonstrated in more detail.

Response 1: In the abstract, at lines 22 to 24 the authors preferred to just mention the issue related to the unbalanced number of geomagnetic observatories in favour of the northern hemisphere with respect to the southern one, and in particular in the Antarctic continent. Data from ground observatories, especially those located in polar area, together with data from satellites  play a crucial role in the development of the geomagnetic field reference models. For reinforcing this concept, in the introduction of the paper at line 52 to 55 the authors include now the following sentence, citing a recent paper published in 2021:

As stated by Alken et al. [10], data from ground observatories, especially those located in remote areas, together with data from satellites, play a crucial role in the development of geomagnetic field reference models.

REF: International Geomagnetic Reference Field: the 13th generation, Alken, P., Thébault, E., Beggan, C.D. et al. International Geomagnetic Reference Field: the thirteenth generation. Earth Planets Space 73, 49 (2021).doi: 10.1186/s40623-020-01288-x

Point2: Lines 178 to 180 in the paper are semantically contradictory. Why is the ambient temperature at least - 55 ° C, and the temperature in the box of the magnetometer electronic devices not lower than - 40 °C. And this conclusion is obtained by analyzing the data. You can make specific analysis instead of writing "analyzing the data"

Response 2: The reviewer is right. The authors have expressed the concept incorrectly, in fact such conclusion was deduced by considering the trend of the experimental data recorded both from magnetic equipment and from indipendent meteo data. The authors clearified this aspect modifying the text accordingly.In particular, the lines 178 to 180 is moved more appropriately at lines 273-276 and modified as in the following:

Looking at the data related to the electronics and ambient temperature in Fig. 4, it is also interesting to see that heat dissipation from the electronics itself makes the temperature inside the hosting box not drop below -40° C even when, at the same time, the ambient temperature reaches at least -55°C.

Point 3: There are few references in recent five years.

Response 3: New recent references [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11] have been included in the recise version of the manuscript.

Point 4: There are many long sentences in the paper, which cause reading difficulties. You can adjust the expression and shorten the number of words in each sentence.

Response 4: The long sentences included in the text have been shorten for improving the readability of the whole text.

Point 5: Figures 5 to 10 are placed too densely, which makes it difficult to connect images and texts. You can adjust the position and size of the picture to make it adjacent to the text describing the picture.

Response 5: The authors are confident that the Editor will be able to adjust the positions and size of the pictures within the related text, letting the format of the whole manuscript easy to read.

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed all my questions, and I have no other extended questions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer2, thank you for appreciating our paper's changes that you had suggested to us.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf