Turbulence Parameters in the Troposphere—Lower Stratosphere Observed by Beijing MST Radar

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

My comments are in the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the Reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Turbulence parameters in the troposphere–lower stratosphere observed by Beijing MST radar” (ID: remotesensing-1551879). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, and they also provided important guidance for us to improve our research. We appreciate for Editors and Reviewers’ warm work earnestly. We have studied each comment carefully and have made required corrections. We hope that the present modification would meet with approval. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the Reviewer’s comments are as follows:

Reviewer's comment on the manuscript:

Investigations of the altitude profile of turbulence parameters and their variations provide an essential input in understanding the development of clouds and precipitation, the coupling between troposphere- lower stratosphere, dynamic processes of various spatial scales in the atmosphere. In the present time the relevant research by using MST radar data to analyze the seasonal and diurnal variation features of turbulence parameters has been limited to just a few regions, owing to the MST radar can support the weather and climate forecasting models

The manuscript is aimed on the investigation of statistical features of turbulence parameters at different atmospheric layers. The results are based on data observed by Beijing's MST radar from 2012 to 2014 by using the spectral width method to calculate the turbulence energy dissipation rate and vertical turbulence diffusion coefficient. Authors have analyzed in detail the seasonal and annual variations of the turbulence energy dissipation rate and vertical turbulence diffusion coefficient at different heights. The comparison between the atmospheric turbulence parameters and atmospheric stability was also carried out.

The manuscript is well organized and written. It provides new results which are important for the studies of turbulence in the troposphere - lower stratosphere system and for weather and climate forecasting models. The manuscript meets the criteria for the publication in the Remote Sensing in a full measure.

I recommend the manuscript for a publication in the present form.

 

Response:

We are very grateful for your review and affirmation of our work.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper discusses the distributions of the turbulence energy dissipation rate and the vertical turbulence diffusion coefficient over Beijing, from the Doppler radar observations made in 2012-2014. The data interpretation is based on the spectral method.

The paper in its current form is very much like a technical report. In order to decide whether it is worth publishing, we have to understand which of the authors' points would be interesting to the journal audience. Are these the turbulence parameters in the specific area or some conclusions that can be valid in other areas? Or the methods that can be applied in other areas?

So my opinion is that the paper needs more discussion of the methods and their physical basics. To this end, the authors must provide the answers to the following questions:

1. What are the physical assumptions behind the applied methods? How can we be sure that these assumptions hold? The methods 

2. How do we know that the turbulence under consideration is really isotropic Kolmogorov turbulence? The authors say that "most current research on radar-based turbulent parameters is based on the Kolmogorov assumption of isotropic turbulence in the inertial range [4-6]". Unfortunately, references [4-6] cannot support this statement: they are classical theoretical works. Two of these works [5,6] are different publications/editions of the same book by Tatarskii.

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

Our responds to the reviewer’s comments are in the attahed file ".pdf”

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf