This study shows that triangulation from an overpass flight photography can reconstruct well cloud topography if the horizontal wind is taken into account. Since the wind is changing with height, the correction is iterative. A wind-driven height bias of up to ~200 m is replaced, when corrected for the wind, with little bias with a random height error of 140 m.  This is very nice but ignores the fact that the clouds are convective, and the vertical growth rate of the clouds can be in the order of half of the horizontal wind speed of 7 m/s in this case. An interesting question is to what extent can the remaining error be caused by the cloud's vertical growth rate?  This question can be answered both theoretically, and based on the simulation part.  

A missing number is the simulated flight height above the simulated cloud.

Consideration of the cloud motion for aircraft-based stereographically derived cloud geometry and cloud top heights

Lea Volkmer, Tobias Kölling, Tobias Zinner, and Bernhard Mayer

General comments

The paper is well written and has an overall clear structure and figures. The topic is interesting and fits well to the aims and scopes of AMT. The paper describes an extension of an existing method from Kölling et al. (2019) to derive the cloud top heights from airplane measurements. The extension takes cloud movement into account. The goal of the paper is clearly motivated and straight forward.

In principle the approach the authors present in their paper is very valuable and have great potential to improve the cloud top height retrieval from aircraft. It is interesting and suitable for publication in AMT. It is recommended for publication after minor revisions.

Minor comments

Wind correction based on ERA5 reanalysis data

Please, add also Pcs in the text.

p. 3, line 90: “of the point on the cloud surface (Pcs)”

to Figure 1: In the printed version the clouds are quite faint.

Validation using measurements from EUREC4A campaign

Figure 2 should be enlarged, it hard to see.

p.4, line 109: “no significant change” To be more precise, a value should be given here.

Figure 3: Could you include the PDF of the WALES measurement, the comparison would be benefit from it.

Accuracy estimation using realistic simulated measurements from 3-D radiative transfer simulations

p.7, line 133. Can you add an explanation why the used wind speed in the simulations is chosen lower than the real measurement before?

Conclusion

To the conclusion: It should be mentioned that further studies with more inhomogeneous cloud state should be added. Since the correction will be even more necessary.