The impact of MISR-derived injection height initialization on wildfire and volcanic plume dispersion in the HYSPLIT model

Vernon, Charles J.; Bolt, Ryan; Canty, Timothy; Kahn, Ralph A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-6289-2018

Articles | Volume 11, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-6289-2018

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-6289-2018

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

Articles | Volume 11, issue 11

Research article

|

21 Nov 2018

Research article |

| 21 Nov 2018

The impact of MISR-derived injection height initialization on wildfire and volcanic plume dispersion in the HYSPLIT model

Charles J. Vernon, Ryan Bolt, Timothy Canty, and Ralph A. Kahn

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Final revised paper (published on 21 Nov 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 23 May 2018)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review – Vernon et al., 2018 - AMTD', Anonymous Referee #2, 21 Jun 2018
- AC1: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #2', Charles Vernon, 16 Aug 2018
RC2: 'Review of Vernon et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 29 Jun 2018
- AC2: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #1', Charles Vernon, 16 Aug 2018

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Anna Wenzel on behalf of the Authors (07 Sep 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (07 Sep 2018) by Thomas Eck

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (19 Sep 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The quality and clarity of the paper is generally improved. I feel the feel that the last sentence of the abstract overstates the result of the paper (“…HYSPLIT model tends to represent plume evolution better…if the injection height in the model is constrained by hyper-spectral satellite retrievals.”). The final sentence of the conclusion section is more appropriate (“…the use of MINX injection heights, when available, can improve downwind dispersion forecasts…”). “Can” being the operative word. Of the three fire cases two were clearly improved by the use of the MINX data, and the authors clearly explain why, as well as why the Fraser Plateau case is not improved. Of the three volcanic plume cases, for Eyja and Etna I agree with the authors on the conclusion of the similar performance and why. For the third case, Chikurachki, I’m not sure I agree with the authors that the MINX-informed injection height results in a better simulation. My read of Figure 9d is that the ash plume travels in “v” shape from the volcano, with one arm of the “v” on the western side of the circled area and the other on the eastern side. The argument seems to be that the larger area of “high” particle concentration on the western side in the MINX-injection indicates the better performance. The region of “Nominal High” and “Nominal Slight” in Figure 9c is just over the eastern end of the circled area and seems to me to maybe represent that eastern arm of the plume, so I could argue that the nominal injection is better in that sense. I presume the two plume arms are at different altitudes. I find that case to be ambiguous. So my conclusion of the paper is using the MINX-injection “can” help, but often does no better than the nominal case. I don’t think this detracts from the utility of the approach, and the point about smoke injections in high shear environments is well made. So I suggest the paper is suitable for publication with consideration of my point about the interpretation of Chikurachki and a softening of the final sentence in the abstract.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (24 Sep 2018)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (24 Sep 2018) by Thomas Eck

AR by Charles Vernon on behalf of the Authors (05 Oct 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (10 Oct 2018) by Thomas Eck

Short summary

The height that aerosols are injected into the atmosphere can significantly impact the dispersion of aerosol plumes. We use direct observations from the MISR instrument to determine aerosol injection height and constrain the HYSPLIT Dispersion model with these data. We have shown that the nominal plume-rise calculation within HYSPLIT tends to underestimate injection heights of wildfires and that simulations constrained with MISR injection height can show better agreement with MODIS observations.