An advanced method of contributing emissions to short-lived chemical species (OH and HO<sub>2</sub>): the TAGGING 1.1 submodel  based on the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy 2.53)

Rieger, Vanessa S.; Mertens, Mariano; Grewe, Volker

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-2049-2018

Articles | Volume 11, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-2049-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

The Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) (ACP/GMD inter-journal...

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-2049-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 6

Development and technical paper

|

05 Jun 2018

Development and technical paper |

| 05 Jun 2018

An advanced method of contributing emissions to short-lived chemical species (OH and HO₂): the TAGGING 1.1 submodel based on the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy 2.53)

Vanessa S. Rieger, Mariano Mertens, and Volker Grewe

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Final revised paper (published on 05 Jun 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Oct 2017)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

SC1: 'Code Accessibility', Lutz Gross, 07 Nov 2017
- SC2: 'TAGGING 1.1 will be included in MESSy 2.54', Vanessa Rieger, 08 Nov 2017
- AC3: 'TAGGING 1.1 will be included in MESSy 2.54', Vanessa Rieger, 22 Feb 2018
RC1: 'Paper needs clarification', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 Nov 2017
- AC1: 'Response to Reviewer #1', Vanessa Rieger, 22 Feb 2018
RC2: 'Review of Rieger, Mertens, and Grewe 2017', Anonymous Referee #2, 01 Dec 2017
- AC2: 'Response to Reviewer #2', Vanessa Rieger, 22 Feb 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Vanessa Rieger on behalf of the Authors (23 Feb 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (05 Mar 2018) by Olaf Morgenstern

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (14 Mar 2018)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (16 Mar 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

General comments

The manuscript has significantly improved compared to the previous draft, in particular the readability. I still have some general doubts about the usefulness of the approach and the combined tagging of long- and short-lived species. However, given that the method and the caveats are now better explained, I think the paper is now publishable. I have some few, but minor suggestions for further clarification.

Specific comments

- p2, l12-16: I think a discussion about OH variability and methyl chloroform has to cite also the work by Stephen Montzka et al., e.g. Science (2011).

- p2, l22: Grewe et al. (2017)

- Fig.1: I think Figure 1 could be improved by adding the tagged emission categories. As far as I understand the combination of long- and short-lived species, the “starting point” of the tagging is ozone. That should be made visible in Fig. 1.

- p5, l14-17: Ozone itself is not emitted. Please be more precise in your wording. Furthermore, it would be nice to have at least one sentence about which emitted species are distinguished. As I understand from the conclusions (p19, l11) the tagging considers NOy, CO and NMHC emissions. NOy in total, or NO and NO2 separately?

- p8, l26: … to the tagging method…

- p8, l14: Why is reaction 14 listed as an example? Is NO not tagged?

- section 3.4: I really appreciate that the authors added this section about the steady-state assumption. However, I would prefer a slightly more neutral or scientific wording when it comes to the agreement between reduced and full chemical scheme. It is no big surprise that in v1.1 the sum of OH and HO2 balances the total concentrations after introducing the rest terms. That is the job of the rest terms. I would be also interested to see how the rest terms affect the conclusions about the contribution of certain source categories, for example in the tropical lower troposphere, where the OH and HOx rest terms are largest. And it would be nice to see an argument why not all reactions of the HOx and H chemistry are tagged. Computationally too expensive? In case all reactions were tagged, the rest terms would be needless, right?

- p16, l25: Replace “To quantify” with “To demonstrate”

- p16, l29/30: Doesn’t a larger O3 contribution from shipping also lead to more “shipping” OH via the formation of O(1D) and the subsequent reaction with H2O?

- references: Grewe et al., 2017 is already published and no longer a discussion paper.

- caption S1: firt -> first

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (30 Mar 2018) by Olaf Morgenstern

AR by Vanessa Rieger on behalf of the Authors (19 Apr 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (30 Apr 2018) by Olaf Morgenstern

Short summary

To reduce the climate impact of human activities, it is crucial to attribute changes in atmospheric gases to anthropogenic emissions. We present an advanced method to determine the contribution of emissions to OH and HO₂ concentrations. Compared to the former version, it contains the main reactions of the OH and HO₂ chemistry in the troposphere and stratosphere, introduces the tagging of the H radical and closes the budget of the sum of all contributions and the total concentration.

An advanced method of contributing emissions to short-lived chemical species (OH and HO2): the TAGGING 1.1 submodel based on the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy 2.53)

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Interactive discussion

Peer-review completion

An advanced method of contributing emissions to short-lived chemical species (OH and HO₂): the TAGGING 1.1 submodel based on the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy 2.53)