the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 07 May 2024
The Pyrenean Platform for Observation of the Atmosphere: Site, long-term dataset and science
Abstract. The Pyrenean Platform for Observation of the Atmosphere (P2OA) is a coupled plain-mountain instrumented platform in southwest France. It is composed of two physical sites: The "Pic du Midi" mountain top observatory (2877 m a.s.l.) and the "Centre de Recherches Atmosphériques" (600 m a.s.l). Both sites are complementarily instrumented for the monitoring of climate variables and the study of meteorological processes in a mountainous region. The scientific topics covered by the P2OA include surface-atmosphere interactions in heterogeneous landscape and complex terrain, physics and chemistry of atmospheric trace species at large scale, influence of local and regional-scale emissions and transport on the atmospheric composition, and transient luminous events above thunderstorms.
With a large number of instruments and a high hosting capacity, the P2OA contributes to atmospheric sciences in (i) building long-term series of atmospheric observations, (ii) hosting experimental field campaigns and instrumental tests, (iii) educational training in atmospheric observation techniques.
Here we present the complete instrumentation of the P2OA and the associated datasets, give a meteorological characterization of the platform, and illustrate the potential of the P2OA and its dataset with past or ongoing studies and projects.
- Preprint
(8206 KB) - Metadata XML
- BibTeX
- EndNote
Status: open (until 11 Jun 2024)
-
RC1: 'Comment on amt-2024-10', Anonymous Referee #2, 17 May 2024
reply
This article provides a description of the P2OA (Pyrenean Platform for Observation of the Atmosphere) instrumented site, whose measurements are part of the ACTRIS and ICOS European research infrastructures. The instrumented site includes two measuring stations, a high altitude station at Pic du Midi (PDM) and a plain station at Lannemezan (CRA). The article describes the instrumental strategy, the data policy and an overview of scientific results obtained with P2OA data. P2OA is an important element of the French system for monitoring atmospheric composition and climate. I think therefore that this publication is welcome, it is very useful that this instrumented site is the subject of a scientific article in AMT. However, from my point of view there are several aspects to improve or correct in the article before being acceptable for publication in AMT.
Major remarks
1) Line 10 : It seems to me that the research infrastructures and the main networks in which P2OA is involved should be mentioned in the abstract.
2) Line 18 : « it is one of the five national multi-instrumented sites” : Most of them are mentioned later in the text, but I think that they all could be mentioned here.
3) Lines 25-30 : It seems not necessary to me to mention here the polar or marine stations whose scientific themes are far from P2OA.
4) Table 1 : The table indicates that greenhouse gas measurements are in the framework of ICOS-FR, but not ICOS-EU. Is this an error or is the data really not transmitted to the European level of ICOS? For what reason ?
5) Table 1 : The Table and the article in general contain a lot of acronyms. Some of them are not necessarily well known (TLE, GNSS, VLF, LPR GEM, GOM, etc.). It would be useful for the reader that all the acronyms be defined (potentially in an appendix section).
6) Table 1 : Add references (scientific articles or web links to algorithms if they exist (5th column) and to networks and research infrastructure (6th and 7th columns).
7) Table 1 : Some variables are within the framework of several networks or Research Infrastructures (example ACTRIS/NDACC, ACTRIS/GAW, ACTRIS/GMOS). Would it be possible to explain the articulation or link between these networks or RI?
8) Section 1 : The introduction is almost exclusively oriented towards the variables and themes of ACTRIS. Indeed, Table 1 shows that the majority of variables on the two sites are ACTRIS variables, but ICOS and IRSN are also part of the instrumental setup, without being mentioned at all in the introduction. I think it would be necessary to broaden the introduction scope to all the networks and IRs whose data is produced at P2OA.
9) Section 5.2 : This section discusses the seasonal variability. Figure of temperature, vapor and shortwave radiation at CRA. It seems that figure 3 to 6 are only made with CRA data, but meteorological measurements are also performed at PDM. Their use could be useful to characterize the meteorological variability of the entire instrumented site and not just CRA? If the section is limited to CRA this should appear in the section title (not only seasonal variability, but Seasonal variability + of what + where)
10) Section 5.3 : This section discusses the atmospheric composition seems only limited to PDM (contrary to section 5.2 limited to CRA). Table 1 indicates that there are also atmospheric composition measurements at CRA. Is it possible to broaden the context of atmospheric composition to the entire instrumented site, including CRA?
11) Figure 7 : With the period covered is limited to 2015-2019? Is it the longer period during which variables are all available ?
12) Section 5 : A subsection “long term trends” should be welcome to complete the seasonal variability, atmospheric composition …etc. Table 1 indicates that the P, T, Humidity and wind variables have an indicated start time period of 1882. Is historical dataset from the 19th century available anywhere? Do they show a very long term trend?
13) Section 6 : The subsections present scientific results obtained with P2OA data, but some were also performed within the framework of research infrastructures (ACTRIS, ICOS, ...) or networks (GAW, IRSN, ...). These networks should be mentioned in the text. For example, are the results presented in Section 6.2.2 within the framework of the IRSN or not? If not could one IRSN scientific result bee highlighted ?
14) Section 6 : There does not seem to be any highlighted scientific result based on ICOS measurements in section 6? why ?
15) Figure 8: the horizontal axis may seem mysterious to a non-specialist reader. Is it possible to explain a little bit its meaning and the unity used?Minor points
1) Figure 1 : Top part: add a color bar which indicates the altitude
2) Figure 2 : the radial scale is not the same (max 12% on a, 14% on b and c). It would be better to put the same scale on the 3 plots (all 14%)
3) Figure 6: the legend indicates that the variable on the figure is Zi and the text line 449 indicates the figure shows the convective boundary layer (CBL). Is it the same variable ? Need to homogenize between text and figure caption.
4) Figures 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 : The site where the data have been obtained (CRA or PDM) has to be mentioned in the caption.
5) Line 510 : the web link is in the text, while the web links in section 4.1.5 are in footnotes. It seems preferable to standardize by putting all the links to the websites in footnotes as example (or in appendix).Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2024-10-RC1
Viewed
| HTML | XML | Total | BibTeX | EndNote | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 114 | 44 | 8 | 166 | 6 | 7 |
- HTML: 114
- PDF: 44
- XML: 8
- Total: 166
- BibTeX: 6
- EndNote: 7
Viewed (geographical distribution)
| Country | # | Views | % |
|---|
| Total: | 0 |
| HTML: | 0 |
| PDF: | 0 |
| XML: | 0 |
- 1