The Pairing of Rapid Intensification Events and Eyewall Replacement Cycles in Tropical Cyclones in the Atlantic Basin from 2015 to 2020

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1) My suggestion for this paper is:
Major Corrections

2) My comments to the authors are: 
"This is an interesting article that investigates statistically the characteristics of paired Rapid Intensification (RI)/ Eyewall Replacement Cycle (ERC) events in intense tropical cyclones in north Atlantic relative to events with only RI or only ERCs. The use of English is very good, the abstract is concise and the conclusions are supported by the results. Not all the figures are necessary, because figure 2 has not been referenced or discussed in the article.

Major correction:
The authors need to justify adequately the use of such a small number of years (2015-2020) or extend their analysis in a much longer period. The HURDAT2 data cover many decades, while CIMSS MIMIC imagery is available since mid 2000s (to the best of my knowledge). The small dataset is likely to have affected the results and mainly the analysis of the ERC-only events against the paired RI/ERC events (section 3b). The problems of the small dataset have been acknowledged by the authors.

Minor corrections:
They have been included in the attached pdf document."

3) The suggested minor corrections have been included (as comments) on the pdf document that I attach in this email.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. Title: the title is inconsistent with the content. The study simply compared RI/ERC case, RI only case, and ERC only case in terms of TC intensity, but did not directly investigate the link between RI and ERC. Why does ERC tend to occur shortly after RI? How does RI interact with ERC? These are very important questions, but are not involved in this study.

2. Abstract: I don't see any important results obtained in this study. Please re-write this part by adding some important findings instead of plainly stating what the study did.  Meanwhile, it is not recommended to cite other literature in the Abstract.

3. Conclusions: please add more quantitative results. How much stronger can RI/ERC case be?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

No comment

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Summary:

This study examines RI events and ERCs, focusing on paired events. These types of events are definitely important to study, as they may be tough cases for intensity forecasts in some instances. This makes the study worthwhile, although I am not sure that the analysis here is robust enough to make any conclusions about these events. The motivation and background could use some more organization, and I think the causality (and whether any can actually be drawn from this analysis) needs to be thought through and discussed more thoroughly.

 

Recommendation: Major Revisions

 

Paper Strengths: 

1. The paper does a good job of bringing in lots of recent and relevant studies on RI and intensity change.

2. The idea of studying paired RI/ERC events is useful for understanding and prediction of intensity change. 

 

Major Suggestions: 

Lines 52-65: You should add a sentence or two to this paragraph on statistical modeling to make the relevance for the current study more clear.

 

Lines 201-206: One concern with this threshold/definition for a paired event is that, without accounting for the order of occurrence, I would imagine the majority of cases will be the “classic” case where RI happens, and then the secondary eyewall forms, which ends the RI. The more interesting cases (like the Irma example) are probably rarer, but those seem to be the ones the study is focused on. So how was the order accounted for, if at all?

 

Lines 237-244: This motivation feels a little bit out of place here - it might go better at the start of this section or in an earlier section.

 

Lines 253-256: Again, without the timing/order information, it’s hard to assign cause and effect here - it could well be that the cases that end up stronger/more mature are likely to undergo ERCs, not that ERCs make the storm likely to be stronger. 

 

Lines 271-272: Do the authors have any thoughts as to why the paired events might have longer intensification periods? Is it something related to the ERC itself? Or maybe simply the fact that ERCs and RI both tend to occur in favorable large-scale conditions (as the paper noted)?

 

Minor Suggestions: 

Lines 25-26: It might be helpful to briefly define or describe both RI and ERCs, for readers who are less familiar with the terms. 

 

Lines 46-48: The intensity could be one category higher or lower, right? Might want to re-phrase this sentence on the uncertainty.  

 

Line 109: Within a 12-hour timespan of what? It would be helpful to clarify this point.

 

Lines 148-150: The reason there’s a lot of overlap between conditions favorable for RI and secondary eyewalls is that such conditions favor TCs reaching maturity without too much environmental interference. 

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript studied the relationship between rapid intensification (RI) and eyewall replacement cycles (ERCs) in intense tropical cyclones (TCs) by conducting a statistical analysis of North Atlantic basin TCs from 2016 to 2020. The authors constructed and analyzed three data sets: TCs with paired RI/ERC events within 24 hours, TCs with RI only, and TCs with ERCs only. Their results indicate that TCs experiencing paired RI/ERC events exhibit greater strength, faster intensification, and longer-lasting intensity than storms undergoing RI or ERC events alone.  The results sound exciting, and the manuscript is overall well-written.  I recommend this manuscript for publication in its present form.

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have successfully addressed the proposed corrections. It is suggested to accept this article for publication in Atmosphere. There is only one typing error that needs to be corrected before publication. More specifically, in line 353 of the revised manuscript “35 kt/24 h” must be replaced by “30 kt/24 h”, in line with lines 76-77.

Author Response

Thank you for catching this inconsistency. This has now been corrected.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I think the paper can be accepted now

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback. Your previous recommendations helped improve the overall manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have addressed my concerns sufficiently and have listed the important caveats for their work, so the paper is acceptable for publication.

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback. Your previous recommendations helped improve the overall manuscript.