Annual and semiannual cycles of midlatitude near-surface temperature and tropospheric  baroclinicity: reanalysis data  and AOGCM simulations

Lembo, Valerio; Bordi, Isabella; Speranza, Antonio

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-295-2017

Articles | Volume 8, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-295-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-295-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 8, issue 2

Research article

|

20 Apr 2017

Research article |

| 20 Apr 2017

Annual and semiannual cycles of midlatitude near-surface temperature and tropospheric baroclinicity: reanalysis data and AOGCM simulations

Valerio Lembo, Isabella Bordi, and Antonio Speranza

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Final revised paper (published on 20 Apr 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 14 Jul 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review Lembo et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 03 Aug 2016
- AC1: 'Reply to the reviewers (RC1, RC2 and RC3)', Isabella Bordi, 22 Sep 2016
RC2: 'Review in Review_ESD_aug2016.pdf file', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Aug 2016
- AC2: 'Reply to the reviewers (RC1, RC2 and RC3)', Isabella Bordi, 22 Sep 2016
RC3: 'Review of Annual and semiannual cycles of midlatitude surface temperature and baroclinicity: reanalysis data and AOGCMs simulations', Anonymous Referee #3, 10 Aug 2016
- AC3: 'Reply to the reviewers (RC1, RC2 and RC3)', Isabella Bordi, 22 Sep 2016

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (24 Oct 2016) by Valerio Lucarini

AR by Anna Mirena Feist-Polner on behalf of the Authors (05 Dec 2016) Author's response

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (17 Dec 2016) by Valerio Lucarini

AR by Isabella Bordi on behalf of the Authors (26 Dec 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (04 Jan 2017) by Valerio Lucarini

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (23 Jan 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I have appreciated the effort made by the authors in preparing the present revised version: tha paper quality has improved. However, I do not think they have fully replied to my major comments; still, I am aware that some questions I posed were difficult to be answered within the limitations of this work. Also, perhaps I was not clear enough. The authors have also considered the majority of my minor comments.
However, there are two of them which I think need additional consideration before I consider the paper worth of publication - I report here my original comment and the authors' reply:

4. Page 2, line 8: "... and the atmosphere is heated from below": this seems to contradict the previous sentence that most of the (seasonal) atmospheric heating is due to direct atmospheric absorption. Pls. clarify.
Reply: It is not a contradiction since the dominant oscillation is the annual one that is strictly related to the insolation. As known, the atmosphere is almost transparent to the short ware radiation that is absorbed by the Earth’s surface.
My comment: Donohoe and Battisti (2013) indicate that the "DIRECT shortwave absorption" by the atmosphere is an important contribution for the annual cycle budget, so the heating from below is not the only relevant term. It seems to me that this means that the atmosphere CANNOT be considered almost transparent to shortwave radiation. I was myself a bit surprised by reading that, but I must confirm my previous comment: there is a contradiction in the sentence in the present paper and the authors should resolve it, after carefully reconsidering the results of D.&B (unless they have reasons to question them...).

27. Page 9, lines 33-34: again, a physical interpretation is missing here. The sentence "... the role of the semiannual variability in shaping eddy activity" is meaningless: "variability" is a physical/statistical property, not a physical factor.
Reply: We changed “shaping” with “modulating” that is more appropriate.

My comment: "modulating" is better than "shaping" - however, it was the subject, not the verb, that I questioned. The "variability", without specifying of which physical quantity, cannot be considered to be a physical variable/factor... this is the point I tried to make. It is not only a matter of language.
If not better specified, it risks to be a tautology: the modulation of eddy activity is itself a variability!

In conclusion, I consider this paper worth of publication provided the above two points are clarified in the text.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (25 Jan 2017)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by Editor) (25 Jan 2017) by Valerio Lucarini

AR by Isabella Bordi on behalf of the Authors (31 Jan 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by Editor) (27 Feb 2017) by Valerio Lucarini

AR by Isabella Bordi on behalf of the Authors (08 Mar 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (20 Mar 2017) by Valerio Lucarini

Short summary

The study wishes to better characterize the annual and semiannual cycles of surface temperature and baroclinicity at midlatitudes as observed in ERA-Interim reanalysis data and AOGCM simulations. Results show that at the semiannual frequency model phases between surface temperature and baroclinicity have wide dispersion in both hemispheres with large errors in the estimates, denoting uncertainty and a degree of disagreement among models.