Comparisons and quality control of wind observations in a mountainous city using wind profile radar and the Aeolus satellite

Lu, Hua; Xie, Min; Zhao, Wei; Liu, Bojun; Wang, Tijian; Zhuang, Bingliang

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-167-2024

Articles | Volume 17, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-167-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-167-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 1

Research article

|

12 Jan 2024

Research article |

| 12 Jan 2024

Comparisons and quality control of wind observations in a mountainous city using wind profile radar and the Aeolus satellite

Hua Lu, Min Xie, Wei Zhao, Bojun Liu, Tijian Wang, and Bingliang Zhuang

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Final revised paper (published on 12 Jan 2024)
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Jul 2023)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on amt-2023-152', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Aug 2023
General comments
This study conducted data verification and quality control on wind profile radar and Aeolus wind products, trying to enrich the available wind observations in regions with complex regions. This kind of study is needed to provide more reliable wind observations for both related mechanistic studies and assimilation applications in numerical weather prediction. Generally, this work is quite meaningful and informative. Most results are pretty valuable to atmospheric measurement studies. I would recommend its acceptance for publication after some necessary revisions.
Specific comments
Line 85: “determining the movement of atmospheric components”, what determining the movement of atmospheric components? Please reorganize this sentence.

In “2.1 Data”, the location of wind profile radar, radiosonde station, and Aeolus tracks used in this study should be showed in a figure.

Line 112: “Radar can operate almost automatically” should be “Radars can operate almost automatically”, as there are two radars.

In “2.2 Methods”, The number labels of equations are missing in this manuscript. Please add the labels, so that the readers could find corresponding equations.

In Table 1: how do the authors get these extreme climate wind values?

The resolutions of figures in this manuscript should be improved, especially for the label and legends.

In Figure 2, the red scatter plots and blue ones overlap to a great extent, not very clearly expressing relationships between data. The readers may want some objective statistical data on the figure, like the correlation coefficient, which could be more intuitive to illustrate the relationships.

In 3.1, the authors should provide more in-depth analysis for data verification during different weather conditions, because as far as we know, wind profile radar observations may be influenced largely by the weather, rainy or not.

Line 213: “which drift more than 10 kilometers away from the releasing station”, the RS air balls may not always drift more than 10 kilometers away, but in the high levels with large winds, please modify the expression to make it more suitable.

Line 227: “The number of dots ....”? The authors might want to say “large numbers of dot ...”. Please make correction.

Line 324-325: “at a height of 1km, the mean difference between these data was maintained within ± 1 m/s”, but it showed large negative deviations below 1.5 km in the figure.

The paper has some strange expressions and grammatical mistakes in writing, which should be corrected. For example, there are some mix uses of tense. On lines 211-213, the first sentence is past tense, but the second sentence is present tense. Please check throughout the manuscript about this problem.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2023-152-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Min Xie, 04 Sep 2023
  
  Dear Editors and Reviewer:
  Thank you very much for your careful review and valuable suggestions with regard to our manuscript “Comparisons and quality control of wind observations in a mountainous city using wind profile radar and the Aeolus satellite” (Manuscript Number: amt-2023-152). The comments are helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have carefully studied these comments and made changes in the manuscript according to reviewers’ comments. Please see Supplement for the detail.
  
  Sincerely,
  Authors
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2023-152-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on amt-2023-152', Anonymous Referee #2, 19 Aug 2023

Please find attached for the comments on AMT-2023-152

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2023-152-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Min Xie, 04 Sep 2023
  
  Dear Editors and Reviewer:
  Thank you very much for your careful review and valuable suggestions with regard to our manuscript “Comparisons and quality control of wind observations in a mountainous city using wind profile radar and the Aeolus satellite” (Manuscript Number: amt-2023-152). The comments are helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have carefully studied these comments and made changes in the manuscript according to reviewer’s comments. Please see Supplement for the detail Reply.
  
  Sincerely,
  Authors
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2023-152-AC2

Peer review completion

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

AR by Min Xie on behalf of the Authors (05 Sep 2023)

EF by Polina Shvedko (08 Sep 2023) Manuscript Author's response Author's tracked changes

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (17 Sep 2023) by Ad Stoffelen

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (20 Sep 2023)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (05 Oct 2023)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Wind profile observations are essential to atmospheric science, provides valuable information about the vertical structure of atmosphere and the movement of air masses. This study addressed the limited availability and low resolution of ground-based vertical wind observations in Chongqing, a typical mountainous city in China. To overcome this issue, the authors matched the Aeolus satellite track with ground-based vertical wind observation sites in Chongqing, with the year 2021 as an example. They then conducted verification and quality control studies on wind observations obtained from wind profile radar by comparing them with radiosonde data and the Aeolus satellite's Mie-cloudy and Rayleigh-clear wind products. Overall, this paper provides valuable insights into the comprehensive applications of multi-source wind profile data in mountainous cities with sparse ground-based wind observations. The findings contribute to improving the understanding of vertical wind profiles and emphasize the importance of quality control in vertical wind data analysis. This study is meaningful and I recommend this manuscript for publication in AMT after some revision:
1. Figure 2 illustrates the procedures of data matching and validation, which utilizes several abbreviations. As figures are independent of the text, please provide the meanings of these abbreviations either within the figure itself or its caption for the convenience for reading. Additionally, please confirm whether it is RWD or WPR.
2. In 2.2.4, the Aeolus HLOS wind products, including the Mie-cloudy and Rayleigh-clear wind products, are conducted quality control with two parameters derived from the Level 2B data products. However, I do not find any information about the number of excluded data and effect of this quality control on the overall datasets.
3. In 3.1, This manuscript did not provide specific information regarding the missing data rate in the wind profile radar and radiosonde data used in the study. It is important to note that missing data commonly exist in ground-based observations due to various factors such as equipment malfunction, technical issues, or weather conditions. It is recommended that the authors provide relevant information regarding the missing data rate and discuss how they handled the missing data in their analysis
4. In Table 1, row 3 and row 2 are not aligned, please check.
5. The descriptions of Figure 5 in Line 271-286 are mainly qualitative description. The readers may want some specific data, such as the proportion of deviations concentrated between -10 to +10 m/s at various vertical levels, which could make the description more specific and objective.
6. Line 318-319, “The obtained results .... described in Section 2”, what is the obtained results? The author may want to say “the match procedure results”, please rephrase this sentence.
7. Line 321-323, “The PDD ... generally present as ...., with 82.9% of deviations concentrated ....”, should be “The PDDs .... generally present as ..., with 82.9% of deviations concentrating ...”, please check the sentence.
8. In Line 351-352, Line 362, what does the abbreviation “PWR” mean? I can not find its specific meaning in the previous text. Based on the context in line 56, the author may intend to refer to wind profile radar with abbreviation of “WPR” here. Please use the consistent abbreviation throughout manuscript.
9. In Line 400, “Following screened by ...” should be “Screened by...”.
10. Line 412-413, please unify the tense of the entire sentence.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (08 Oct 2023)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This study addresses the challenges of obtaining wind profile data in a mountainous city in China and demonstrates the importance of utilizing various data sources, including wind profile radar, radiosonde, and satellite-based Aeolus measurements. By matching Aeolus track data with ground-based observations and conducting comparisons with WPR and RS data, the authors provide insights into the correlation and discrepancies among these different measurement techniques. The paper showcases the significance of quality control techniques, such as Gaussian filtering and empirical orthogonal function construction, in improving the accuracy and reliability of wind observations. The analysis reveals the impact of these techniques on retaining wind characteristics and reducing deviations of WPR observations. Furthermore, the study investigates the differences between Aeolus Mie-cloudy and Rayleigh-clear wind products compared to WPR data. By considering factors such as boundary layer dynamics and cloud liquid water content, the authors shed light on the vertical distribution and discrepancies observed at different altitudes.
Overall, this paper highlights the importance of integrating and validating data from multiple sources in atmospheric measurement technology. The findings contribute to a better understanding of wind profiles in mountainous regions, where traditional ground-based observations are limited. The methodology and results presented in this study can guide future research and applications in similar geographical settings, ultimately advancing the field of atmospheric measurement technology and improving our understanding of complex wind patterns. This paper is worthy of publication for AMT with the following comments considered.
1. The data acquisition rate, which represents the ratio of the actual obtained valid data quantity to the total expected data quantity, is an important quantitative indicator for assessing the detection capability of wind profile radars. It is suggested that the authors provide information about the data acquisition rate for the two radars of Chongqing in Section 2.1.1 to enable readers to better understand the detection capability of WPR in mountainous cities.
2. In Section 2.1, wind profiler radar, radiosonde, and Aeolus satellite data are described. As far as we know, these data are in different special and temporal resolutions. Therefore, it is necessary to provide information in the manuscript regarding the data quantities obtained from each measurement technique. This will facilitate a better understanding of the data-matching methods and enhance the credibility of the research.
3. In Line 60, the reference “Dibbern et al., 2001” is not found in the Reference part. Besides, the omission of reference for “WMO, 2001” in Lines 73-74 also occurred.
4. In Lines 75-76, the citation of “Baker et al., 2008” should be “Baker, 2008”, because there is only one author for this paper
5. In Lines 142-144, the expression in the sentence is strange, and “considering” may be revised to “to make up”. Please check and rephrase this sentence to make it more accurate and clear.
6. In Line 233-234, spaces are missing between the numerical values and their units, like “10km” and “850hPa”, please review the manuscript for this error.
7. In Lines 254-255, “quality control 1” should be “Quality Control 1” or “the initial quality control”. Besides, I guess “WRP” at the end of the sentence should be “WPR”.
8. Lines 276-277, in the sentence “large positive deviations were mainly distributed around 3-5 km”, “were” should be deleted.
9. In Figure 5, I wonder whether the word “RWP” in the legend should be “WPR” to match the abbreviations in the title of the figure.
10. In Lines 467-469, the publication year for the reference is not found, please check and make revisions.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (25 Oct 2023) by Ad Stoffelen

AR by Min Xie on behalf of the Authors (27 Oct 2023) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (21 Nov 2023) by Ad Stoffelen

AR by Min Xie on behalf of the Authors (23 Nov 2023) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

Observations of vertical wind in regions with complex terrain are essential, but they are always sparse and have poor representation. Data verification and quality control are conducted on the wind profile radar and Aeolus wind products in this study, trying to compensate for the limitations of wind field observations. The results shed light on the comprehensive applications of multi-source wind profile data in complicated terrain regions with sparse ground-based wind observations.