From Gustiness to Dustiness—The Impact of Wind Gusts on Particulate Matter Emissions in Field Experiments in La Pampa, Argentina

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

introduction is incomplete without proper litereature review information.

Objectives are not defined in the end of introduction

motivation, scope and significance of work in not highlighted in introduction.

overall, the introduction should be rewritten keeping in view of the above issues.

materials and methods is also not upto the mark and expectations of readers. However, the section can be improved further and provides scope to enrich the same.

The results are well focussed and targetted what to achieve in this work in accordance with the objective and title of the work

However, the discussion part extended to some extent in some portion of results and that can be minimised.

i encourage the authors to focus more on the discussion part which are of specific significance in view of result obtained based on the title and rest can be concised so that the space can be saved.

the discussion based on the results is not consistent. somewhere the discussion is not agreement with that shown in figure.

references are not updated and doesnt followed the style as preferred by the journal.

overall, the abstract should be redefined based on the corrections implemented following my recommendations.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Brief summary

This manuscript analyses the effect of wind gustiness on dust emissions proposing with innovative methodology. This manuscript is suitable for publication in “Atmosphere”.  

Broad comments

The manuscript is worthy, in general is well written with only a few minor errors.

The title is OK.

Keywords: OK.

Abstract: OK

The introduction is straightforward, with a complete review of the existing literature; however the hypothesis of the study is missing.

With respect to the methods section, authors should include the statistical analysis. Authors set up a wind velocity of 4 m s^-1 (1 m) as a threshold for the three events analyzed. However, previous research in the same region (https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.863) showed that this threshold is variable among seasons, been in autumn (March) four times higher than in winter (August). Please comment.

Results and Discussion: OK

 

Some specific comments

L18. Please replace ‘between´ with ‘among’

L38. ‘La Pampa’ is a province of Argentina, it is not a region.

L98. Please replace ‘were’ with ‘was’.

L106. Why do you use a wind velocity of 6 m s-1?

L111. With those % of clay and sand is ‘sandy loam’, please check in: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/survey/?cid=nrcs142p2_054167

L122. Please delete ‘Siegmund et al. 2018’.

L124-125. Please correct ‘anemometermast’. DAS is for Dry Aggregate Stability, isn´t it? Why is DAS determined?

L145. Please delete ‘Fryrear et al. 1998’ and use the correspondent citation style.

L187. 1.1 is for the 10% higher?

L227. Please use  ‘s’ for seconds.

L251. Please replace ‘chapters’ with ‘sections’.

L331. Please define GuE and PM in the figure caption.

L333-340. Please replace ‘between´ with ‘among’

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the interesting research. I have some recommendations for improving the content of the manuscript.

1. At the end of the Introduction, the novelty of your research is not clearly written. What exactly is the step forward compared to other similar studies?

2. Since the results of your study are of a methodological nature, it would be highly desirable if, in the Discussion section, you would separate subsections devoted to the limitations and uncertainties of the study. Some of them have already been written. However, it is desirable to present them in a "concentrated" form. This would be very helpful for those who are doing or planning to do similar experiments in different parts of the world.

3. Lines 115-122. I did not find any information about the content of organic matter (including humus) in the experimental soil. How could its presence affect the results of the experiment? Some discussion of this should be in the manuscript.

4. What about the topography of the study site?

5. Do not use PM in the title of the manuscript. Use "particulate matter". This also applies to the abstract and the text of the manuscript.

6. Figure 2. DAS? What's this? The journal Atmosphere is read by specialists from various fields of science. Therefore, all abbreviations must be deciphered in the text.

7. Formulas 1 and 2. All variables must be characterized.

8. Figures 6, 7, 8, and 9. I recommend removing the outer frames on the charts.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The current version of revised paper is well organised and modified by the authors in an excellent manner as per the suggestions and recommendations of reviewers. Hence, I have decided to recommend the paper for publication.