WRF and WRF-Chem v3.5.1 simulations of meteorology and black carbon concentrations in the Kathmandu Valley

Mues, Andrea; Lauer, Axel; Lupascu, Aurelia; Rupakheti, Maheswar; Kuik, Friderike; Lawrence, Mark G.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-2067-2018

Articles | Volume 11, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-2067-2018

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

Special issue:

The community version of the Weather Research and Forecasting...

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-2067-2018

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

Articles | Volume 11, issue 6

Model evaluation paper

|

08 Jun 2018

Model evaluation paper |

| 08 Jun 2018

WRF and WRF-Chem v3.5.1 simulations of meteorology and black carbon concentrations in the Kathmandu Valley

Andrea Mues, Axel Lauer, Aurelia Lupascu, Maheswar Rupakheti, Friderike Kuik, and Mark G. Lawrence

Download

Final revised paper (published on 08 Jun 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 04 Oct 2017)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

SC1: 'Executive Editor comment on "Air quality in the Kathmandu Valley: WRF and WRF-Chem simulations of meteorology and black carbon concentrations"', Astrid Kerkweg, 05 Oct 2017
- AC2: 'Reply to comment by the executive editor', Axel Lauer, 13 Mar 2018
RC1: 'Review comments on Mues et al. manuscript', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Nov 2017
- AC3: 'Reply to anonymous referee #1', Axel Lauer, 13 Mar 2018
RC2: 'Interactive comment on “Air quality in the Kathmandu Valley: WRF and WRF-Chem simulations of meteorology and black carbon concentrations” by Andrea Mues et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 16 Nov 2017
- AC1: 'Reply to reviewer #2', Axel Lauer, 27 Nov 2017
- AC4: 'Addition to our reply to reviewer #2 from 27 Nov 2017', Axel Lauer, 13 Mar 2018
RC3: 'Review of “Air quality in the Kathmandu Valley: WRF and WRF-Chem simulations of meteorology and black carbon concentrations” by Mues et al.', Anonymous Referee #3, 27 Nov 2017
- AC5: 'Reply to anonymous referee #3', Axel Lauer, 13 Mar 2018
EC1: 'Comments on review', Simone Marras, 30 Nov 2017

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Axel Lauer on behalf of the Authors (13 Mar 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (03 Apr 2018) by Simone Marras

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (09 Apr 2018)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (14 Apr 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

After revising the new version of the manuscript I have the impression that the work is still a preliminary study and not a complete modelling research work on the local scale meteorology in the Kathmandu Valley and the concentrations of Black Carbon aerosol at surface level. From the Authors reply, this impression is confirmed by the statement "the WRF-Chem model is used to examine to which extent a widely used state-of-the-art meteorology and air quality model is able to reproduce observations in the Kathmandu region, and provide a preliminary diagnosis (not a full scale investigation) of where there are still gaps in in our understanding of emissions and processes". Results clearly show a poor performance of the WRF-Chem model in reproducing the Black Carbon concentrations measured in the Kathmandu Valley. This is not an unexpected result considering the emissions used by the model. The use of anthropogenic emissions at 1º x 1º of horizontal resolution are not appropriate for a high-resolution configuration of the WRF-Chem model, even improving local emissions of the Kathmandu Valley. The complexity of the region, with very complex topography and very high and complex emission sources, requires both high-resolution meteorology and emissions. Hence, the selection of HTAP emissions is a wrong decision if the authors want to model high-resolution air quality in the region of study with a very complex model like WRF-Chem.

I encourage the Authors to re-design the Black Carbon simulations with the use of appropriate emission data. If this implies that a previous work on emission inventory is needed, then the present manuscript should not be published now in the Journal Geoscientific Model Development.

Hide

ED: Publish as is (08 May 2018) by Simone Marras

AR by Axel Lauer on behalf of the Authors (14 May 2018)