Application of a global nonhydrostatic model with a stretched-grid system to regional aerosol simulations around Japan

Goto, D.; Dai, T.; Satoh, M.; Tomita, H.; Uchida, J.; Misawa, S.; Inoue, T.; Tsuruta, H.; Ueda, K.; Ng, C. F. S.; Takami, A.; Sugimoto, N.; Shimizu, A.; Ohara, T.; Nakajima, T.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-235-2015

Articles | Volume 8, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-235-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-235-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 8, issue 2

Development and technical paper

|

11 Feb 2015

Development and technical paper |

| 11 Feb 2015

Application of a global nonhydrostatic model with a stretched-grid system to regional aerosol simulations around Japan

D. Goto, T. Dai, M. Satoh, H. Tomita, J. Uchida, S. Misawa, T. Inoue, H. Tsuruta, K. Ueda, C. F. S. Ng, A. Takami, N. Sugimoto, A. Shimizu, T. Ohara, and T. Nakajima

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Final revised paper (published on 11 Feb 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 08 Jan 2014)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC C31: 'Referee Comment on gmd-2013-166', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 Feb 2014
- AC C2412: 'Reply to the comments from the referee #1', Daisuke Goto, 25 Nov 2014
RC C1308: 'Review of Goto et al. "Application of a global nonhydrostatic model with a stretched-grid system to regional aerosol simulations around Japan"', Anonymous Referee #2, 04 Aug 2014
- AC C2425: 'Reply to the comments from the referee #2', Daisuke Goto, 25 Nov 2014

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Daisuke Goto on behalf of the Authors (25 Nov 2014) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (05 Dec 2014) by Axel Lauer

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (24 Dec 2014)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This revised manuscript has been greatly improved. The target of this paper (EC and sulfate) is clearly defined. An additional simulation, NICAM-g6, helps to show advantages of the stretched grid system. Comparisons with WRF-CMAQ are useful to see effects of different model types. Statistical parameters shows the model performance quantitatively. All the figures have been much improved. A controversial part including health impacts has been eliminated. Now all the reviewer’s comments have been addressed.

I felt that the former manuscript exaggerated the model performance without any confidence. Now the description of this revised manuscript is based on concrete reasons. It also clearly and honestly indicates limitations of this model.

I still have comments on this revised manuscript. I recommend that this paper is published after all the following comments have been addressed.

Specific comments:
Line 39
What kind of the underestimation is caused by what kind of the underestimation in China?

Line 46 and others
What kind of a variation is intended to be shown by the word “weekly variation”? It may imply a typical variation from Sunday to Saturday due to human activities. Please reconsider the word.

Line 120 and Line 306
I think it is not necessary to mention the model inter-comparison here in the context of this paper.

Line 189
What does “current study” mean here?

Line 253
Takemura et al., 2002a -> Takemura et al., 2002

Line 274
Is “one-hour” accurate?

Line 299
Are these cloud and precipitation schemes used in NICAM-g6str too? If so, these description should be included in the section 2.1.

Line 376
Arakane et al., 2013 -> Arakane et al., 2014

Line 380
Is MSL Mean Sea Level? What is “for the model bottom of MSL”?

Line 388
This sentence is confusing. Why is NICAM-g6str higher than NICAM-g6 because the spatial resolution in NICAM-g6str is finer than that in NCEP-FNL?

Line 389
larger -> higher?

Line 394
Does it mean that the stretched grid system does not affect the general circulations and only affects fields around complex topography?

Line 397
Aerosol concentrations should not be six-hourly “instant” values.

Line 406
NICAM-g6-simulated -> NICAM-g6str-simulated?

Line 469
NICAM-g6-str -> NICAM-g6str

Line 480
NICAM-g6str reproduces with a large uncertainty?? What does it mean?

Line 561
NICAM-g6str at Tsukuba -> NICAM-g6 at Tsukuba

Line 567
I do not understand why reasons for August 12 and 14 can be assumed like this. How about a plume from volcanoes? A plume from volcanoes sometimes causes a high peak, and models sometimes fail to simulate its exact path. I think it can be checked in simulated results.

Line 581
Japanese areas are not shown in Figures 14 and 15 for EC.

Line 598
An evaluation of the prescribed oxidants should be able to be done by sensitivity analyses described in the next section 3.2.

Line 608
Only dry deposition? What about wet deposition?

Line 617
The doubled amount of SO2 emissions can overcome the slight underestimation of the simulated sulfate compared with the observations. Therefore, the emission inventories of SO2 should be improved for the better simulation of the sulfate. On the other hand, the results obtained by the sensitivity experiments of twice strength remain underestimated compared with the measurements. Then, what is a possible solution? Do following sentences are also indicating the emission inventories should be improved?

Line 644
How about effects of prescribed oxidants on hourly variations in this sensitivity analyses? The sentence in Line 537 has implied that prescribed oxidants cause the discrepancy of the hourly variations.

Line 654
An explanation of different Y-axes for observed and simulated values in Figure 17 should be added here, too.

Line 661
What is expected to show here by using the ratios of daytime and nighttime?

References
Following references do not appear in the main text.
Carmichael et al., 2009
Chung et al., 2009
Koch et al., 2007
Lamarque et al., 2010
Moss et al., 2010
Ueda et al., 2009
Watanabe et al., 2010

Figure 1
Where are 2 Sites (LIDAR measurements)? I could not find them in this figure.

Figure 14
It is better to insert R and Br within this figure.

Figure 15
A range of the color bar for SO2 should be changed to see gradients more clearly.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (05 Jan 2015) by Axel Lauer

AR by Daisuke Goto on behalf of the Authors (09 Jan 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (19 Jan 2015) by Axel Lauer

AR by Daisuke Goto on behalf of the Authors (20 Jan 2015)

Short summary

An aerosol-coupled global non-hydrostatic model with a stretched-grid system has been developed to simulate aerosols on a region scale of 10 km grids. The regional simulation does require either a nesting technique or lateral boundary conditions, as opposed to general regional models. It generally reproduces monthly mean distributions of the observed sulfate and SO2 over East Asia as well as the diurnal and synoptic variations of the observed ones around the main target region, Tokyo/Japan.