The three-dimensional structure of fronts in mid-latitude weather systems in numerical weather prediction models

Andreas A. Beckert, Lea Eisenstein, Annika Oertel, Tim Hewson, George C. Craig, and Marc Rautenhaus

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Final revised paper (published on 02 Aug 2023)
Preprint (discussion started on 02 Jan 2023)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

CEC1: 'Comment on gmd-2022-278', Juan Antonio Añel, 10 Mar 2023

Dear authors,

Unfortunately, after checking your manuscript, it has come to our attention that it does not comply with our "Code and Data Policy".
https://www.geoscientific-model-development.net/policies/code_and_data_policy.html
You have archived your code on GitLab. However, GitLab is not an acceptable repository. You must store the code used in your manuscript in other long-term archival alternatives, such as Zenodo, PANGAEA, etc.

Therefore, you must reply to this comment with the relevant information (link and DOI) for the new repositories, as we request that you make it already available before submission and, of course, before the Discussions stage.

Also, please, include in the repository the relevant primary input/output data for your manuscript and the documentation you currently store in another two repositories that are not acceptable either.

Moreover, you must include in a potentially revised version of your manuscript the modified 'Code and Data Availability' section, with the DOI of the code (and another DOI for the dataset if necessary).

Juan A. Añel

Geosci. Model Dev. Exec. Editor

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2022-278-CEC1
RC1: 'Comment on gmd-2022-278', Anonymous Referee #1, 21 Mar 2023

Re-Review of "The three-dimensional structure of fronts in mid-latitude weather systems as represented by numerical weather prediction models"
Note for context: my review of the original submission to Weather and Climate Dynamics can be found under https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2022-36-RC1 .
By chosing GMD over WCD and restructuring the manuscript, the authors have successfully mitigated my concerns with the original submission. Specifically, it has become more clear in which respects the authors improve the front detection beyond Kern et al. (2019).
I personally find it a pity that the authors chose to go this route rather than applying the new methodology in more detailled meteorological analyses that would have fit into WCD. But this is certainly not a detriment for the present submission, which I am happy to endorse with some few minor revisions. And I would be happy to see an application of this method published in WCD at some point.
Minor issues
L282-285: Not quite true, because there is no equivalent mapping of theta_e gradients to theta_w gradients. Thus, any filtering threshold applied to a derivative of the thermal parameter will yield (unavoidable) differences in detections between theta_e and theta_w.
L343-349: I suggest to remove the repetitition. The method description with the same info in more detail is only a page or two above.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2022-278-RC1
RC2:
'Comment on gmd-2022-278', Anonymous Referee #2, 03 Apr 2023
This paper documents the use of a method of identifying atmospheric fronts at different levels in the atmosphere along with 3-D visualisation to investigate features of these systems. The topic of the paper seems very relevant to GMD. The editor has raised issues with the code/data availability, but I trust these will be resolved. I have only a few minor comments. I really enjoyed looking at the 3-D images of the frontal structures and believe this does add to the interpretation of frontal features and associated weather.
I’m slightly unsure of the title, since it suggests there is some model evaluation (“as represented by”). Could this be changed to just “in”?

Section 2.1 - is there an ideal vertical resolution to use? Or a minimum vertical resolution?

Line 158: “at both THE cold and warm SIDES…”

Line 168: Could this be made clearer with “The filter based on the average frontal strength along the normal curve…”?

Line 341: I wonder if this additional feature is important - is there any surface weather associated with the feature?

Line 403: “purpose”, I think should maybe be “propose”.

Line 449: “choose” should be replaced with “have” since they are not aware.

Line 527: “idealized” - do you mean “conceptual” model?

Line 541: I think the Figure 4 reference should be for Figure 11.

Line 583: “the secondary front detected….” Would be clearer if “…in theta w” was added.

Line 608: “atmosphere” -> “atmospheric”.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2022-278-RC2
AC1: 'Response to the two anonymous referees, the editors, and the MS record notification.', Andreas Beckert, 08 May 2023

We would like to thank both anonymous referees and the editors for taking the time to review our manuscript and for providing us with valuable feedback. We greatly appreciate your help in improving our work on the three-dimensional structure of fronts in mid-latitude weather systems. We have revised the article following your suggestions. Please see the attached document for our detailed response.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2022-278-AC1

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload

AR by Andreas Beckert on behalf of the Authors (08 May 2023) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (24 Jun 2023) by Richard Neale

AR by Andreas Beckert on behalf of the Authors (04 Jul 2023) Manuscript

Short summary

We investigate the benefit of objective 3-D front detection with modern interactive visual analysis techniques for case studies of extra-tropical cyclones and comparisons of frontal structures between different numerical weather prediction models. The 3-D frontal structures show agreement with 2-D fronts from surface analysis charts and augment them in the vertical dimension. We see great potential for more complex studies of atmospheric dynamics and for operational weather forecasting.