VESPA-22: a ground-based microwave spectrometer for long-term measurements of polar stratospheric water vapor

Mevi, Gabriele; Muscari, Giovanni; Bertagnolio, Pietro Paolo; Fiorucci, Irene; Pace, Giandomenico

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1099-2018

Articles | Volume 11, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1099-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Twenty-five years of operations of the Network for the Detection...

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-1099-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 2

Research article

|

23 Feb 2018

Research article |

| 23 Feb 2018

VESPA-22: a ground-based microwave spectrometer for long-term measurements of polar stratospheric water vapor

Gabriele Mevi, Giovanni Muscari, Pietro Paolo Bertagnolio, Irene Fiorucci, and Giandomenico Pace

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Final revised paper (published on 23 Feb 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 14 Aug 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Reviewer comment for Mevi et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 14 Sep 2017
- AC1: 'Response to Rev.1', Gabriele Mevi, 21 Nov 2017
RC2: 'Review G. Mevi et al "VESPA-22"', Anonymous Referee #2, 18 Sep 2017
- AC2: 'Response to Rev.2', Gabriele Mevi, 21 Nov 2017

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Gabriele Mevi on behalf of the Authors (06 Dec 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (07 Dec 2017) by Hal Maring

RR by Gerald Nedoluha (15 Dec 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This revised manuscript describes an excellent new instrument and the detailed description of the data processing is exemplary. I have only a few minor suggestions and grammatical corrections.

Page 9 line 3 “most of the times” sounds a bit awkward. It would be perhaps better phrased as “during more measurements”

Figure 4 – Would it be possible to add on to this figure (with a different right-hand axis) the ratio of the noise diodes? This would seem to help to distinguish the noise in the tipping curve procedure from the actual variation in the noise diodes themselves.

Page 13 line 13 – The authors mention the range of values for Se and how they have some seasonal dependence, but there is also, presumably, a dependence on how many channels are being smoothed together. On page 7 it is mentioned that spectra are collected using a 50-channel average, except in the middle 6 MHz. Are the Se values larger in the middle 6 MHz? Also, is this for a 24-hour integration? Up to this point in the paper, the only mention of an integration period that I could find is in the abstract.

Page 14 line 10 – “The retrieval is considered valid for scientific use in the altitude range where the sensitivity is above 0.8 (e.g., Tschanz et al., 2013).” – This makes it sound too much as though there is a formally accepted value for “valid for scientific use”, and there certainly is no such value. It would be better to start the sentence with “For this study we consider the retrieval valid …”

Page 19 line 22 - “Table 4” is repeated.

Page 23 line 10 – The wording here is a bit awkward. First the authors say that spectra in July, August, and September are less continuous, but in the next sentence they mention snow covering the window in November.

Page 23 line 15 – “the spatial distance between concurrent MLS and VESPA-22 profiles increases, on average.” Is this because MLS is drifting? If so, please state this. I was unaware that MLS drifted significantly.

Page 30 line 9 –“measurements noise” should be “measurement noise”

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ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (11 Jan 2018) by Hal Maring

AR by Gabriele Mevi on behalf of the Authors (16 Jan 2018) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

In July 2016, a new ground-based 22 GHz spectrometer for measuring lower and middle atmospheric water vapor was installed at the Thule High Arctic Atmospheric Observatory located at Thule Air Base (76.5° N, 68.8° W), Greenland. The spectrometer, VESPA-22, is designed to operate automatically with little maintenance. The intercomparison between VESPA-22 dataset and the satellite-based Microwave Limb Sounder dataset shows an average difference within 1.4 % up to 60 km altitude.