Concurrent satellite and ground-based lightning observations from the Optical Lightning Imaging Sensor (ISS-LIS), the low-frequency network Meteorage and the SAETTA Lightning Mapping Array (LMA) in the northwestern Mediterranean region

Erdmann, Felix; Defer, Eric; Caumont, Olivier; Blakeslee, Richard J.; Pédeboy, Stéphane; Coquillat, Sylvain

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-853-2020

Articles | Volume 13, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-853-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Hydrological cycle in the Mediterranean (ACP/AMT/GMD/HESS/NHESS/OS...

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-853-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 2

Research article

|

20 Feb 2020

Research article |

| 20 Feb 2020

Concurrent satellite and ground-based lightning observations from the Optical Lightning Imaging Sensor (ISS-LIS), the low-frequency network Meteorage and the SAETTA Lightning Mapping Array (LMA) in the northwestern Mediterranean region

Felix Erdmann, Eric Defer, Olivier Caumont, Richard J. Blakeslee, Stéphane Pédeboy, and Sylvain Coquillat

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Final revised paper (published on 20 Feb 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 04 Jul 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review of AMT-2019-149 by Erdmann et al.', Anonymous Referee #3, 30 Jul 2019
- AC1: 'Author response to RC1: 'Review of AMT-2019-149 by Erdmann et al.' by Anonymous Referee #3', Felix Erdmann, 25 Sep 2019
RC2: 'Review of amt-2019-149, Erdmann et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 31 Jul 2019
- AC2: 'Author response to RC2: 'Review of amt-2019-149, Erdmann et al.' by Anonymous Referee #1', Felix Erdmann, 25 Sep 2019

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Felix Erdmann on behalf of the Authors (25 Sep 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (27 Sep 2019) by Domenico Cimini

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (22 Oct 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Second review of amt-2019-149
October 21, 2019

Title
Concurrent Satellite and ground-based Lightning Observations from the Optical Lightning Imaging Sensor (ISS-LIS), the LF network Meteorage and the SAETTA LMA in the northwestern Mediterranean Region

Authors
Felix Erdmann, Eric Defer, Olivier Caumont, Richard J. Blakeslee, Stéphane Pédeboy, and
Sylvain Coquillat

General Comments
The authors have satisfactorily addressed my comments and concerns, and the work is suitable for publication. The compendium of reported findings should be helpful to future analyses employing ground-based systems to understand and validate satellite-based optical detection of lightning.

I have a modest number of small suggestions (listed below) to be considered during the final revision process.

1. The 2-sentence paragraph starting at line 47 does not flow well with the paragraphs before and after it. Maybe the authors could start this paragraph with something like “These comparisons focus on the spatial and temporal coincidence of flashes reported by the various systems, resulting in measures of detection efficiency (DE) as a function of various flash parameters. This study uses…”
2. Line 84: suggest replacing “TRMM LIS records” with “the total number of observed flashes after combining the datasets.”
3. Line 101: suggest adding “VHF” before “Lightning Mapping”
4. Line 291: suggest replacing “should also” with “can also”
5. Line 320: It was not clear to me that this refinement was part of the algorithm until I read the whole paragraph. It might be helpful of the first sentence is modified to say “…offsets between matched flashes <provides an additional refinement to the> matching algorithm.”
6. Line 370: suggest replacing “missed flashes” with “flashes not reported by SAETTA”
7. Line 499: “Figures” should not be capitalized
8. Line 501: should be LESS sensitive, not MORE sensitive
9. Line 502: text in parentheses is not clear to me
10. Line 511: extent looks more like 10 km in Figure 8
11. Line 518: extent looks more like 10 km, and only at night
12. Line 525: Does this second sentence indicate that ISS-LIS has higher DE that TRMM-LIS? Is this shown elsewhere in the paper? I do not think that this is correct
13. Table 3: the (signed) average maximum pulse/stroke amplitude does not seem to be a meaningful statistic. These three values COULD be replaced by “—” in the table
14. Paragraph starting in Line 551: This content might be helpful earlier on the manuscript, when talking about Table 2 (or earlier – when discussion methods)
15. Line 77: suggest replacing “origin” with “originate”
16. Line 609: the sentence starting near the end of this line (“CG strokes have …”) does is not consistent with earlier content. If kept, it might be more helpful to sive specific counts.

End

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RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (24 Oct 2019)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (07 Nov 2019) by Domenico Cimini

AR by Felix Erdmann on behalf of the Authors (25 Nov 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (05 Dec 2019) by Domenico Cimini

AR by Felix Erdmann on behalf of the Authors (09 Dec 2019) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

This article compares lightning observations from an optical sensor onboard the International Space Station to two ground-based networks using different radio frequencies. The location and timing of coincident flashes agree well for the three instruments. Differences exist for the detected number of flashes and the characteristics. Small flashes in particular are not always detected by all three instruments. About half of the flashes at altitudes below 10 km are not seen by the satellite sensor.