Clouds damp the radiative impacts of polar sea ice loss

Alkama, Ramdane; Taylor, Patrick C.; Garcia-San Martin, Lorea; Douville, Herve; Duveiller, Gregory; Forzieri, Giovanni; Swingedouw, Didier; Cescatti, Alessandro

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2673-2020

Articles | Volume 14, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2673-2020

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2673-2020

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

Articles | Volume 14, issue 8

Research article

|

21 Aug 2020

Research article |

| 21 Aug 2020

Clouds damp the radiative impacts of polar sea ice loss

Ramdane Alkama, Patrick C. Taylor, Lorea Garcia-San Martin, Herve Douville, Gregory Duveiller, Giovanni Forzieri, Didier Swingedouw, and Alessandro Cescatti

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Final revised paper (published on 21 Aug 2020)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 19 Dec 2019)
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: 'glaciology, oceanography', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Jan 2020
- AC1: 'Response 1', Ramdane Alkama, 13 Apr 2020
RC2: 'Review of “Clouds damp the impacts of Polar sea ice loss” by Alkama et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 08 Mar 2020
- AC2: 'Response 2', Ramdane Alkama, 13 Apr 2020

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (23 Apr 2020) by Dirk Notz

AR by Ramdane Alkama on behalf of the Authors (24 Apr 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (14 May 2020) by Dirk Notz

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (26 May 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Second review of “Clouds damp the impacts of Polar sea ice loss” by Alkama et al.

The authors have very nicely handled my concerns from the first review. Both in terms of stressing that cloud changes are only responsible for part of the CRE changes but also in terms of language. And moving the method description into the paper itself also helps a lot. The paper simply reads much better now!

I only have minor suggestions for edits:

L183+196: This equality is only approximate (to 1. order), right? Perhaps use a \simeq.

L242-3: “changes in clear-sky radiation changes”. One too many “changes”.

L261+263: You give the numbers 34% and 66% and the only reference you give is Fig 7d. I guess I am supposed to be able to derive the 34 and 66 from the numbers of the fits printed on Fig 7d, and here I have two issues: i) the numbers are extremely small and difficult to read and ii) please help the reader how to derive the 34 and 66. These are central numbers from the study and you do not want to leave any doubt about them with the reader.

L315. Strike “sea the”

L336-337: “strong increases … are limited”. Sounds odd. Either “strong increases … are excluded/absent/etc” or just “increases… are limited”.

Fig 8: In many panels, the legends cover the data, lines and boxes. If you want the reader to see the data, please change this.
Sect 3.4: This whole section could use another round on the language. It appears to not have been gone over as thoroughly as the rest of the paper.

L378: “over THE Arctic Ocean”

L378: “Arctic Ocean”, in the figure (Fig 9) you call it “Arctic sea” (which also sounds odd). Please choose one and stick with it.

L379: “dampening”, in other places you say “damping”

L381: “causes”

L382: “Fig 9gh”: Are panels g and h really the right reference for this sentence?

L393: “consistent”: Consistent with what? With the observed trends? If so, say so.

L404: “sea-ice” In the rest of the paper you write “sea ice”. Choose one.

L406: “between two consecutive years, the cloud radiative…”.

L422: Why is the Solomon reference written differently from the others?

L426: “At the very least,”. I think you are being too modest here. I would suggest something like “On a practical level,”.

L434: “with respect”

L436: “RCP8.5” – that is also how you write it in L371.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (15 Jun 2020) by Dirk Notz

AR by Ramdane Alkama on behalf of the Authors (19 Jun 2020)

ED: Publish as is (06 Jul 2020) by Dirk Notz

AR by Ramdane Alkama on behalf of the Authors (09 Jul 2020)

Short summary

The amount of solar energy absorbed by Earth is believed to strongly depend on clouds. Here, we investigate this relationship using satellite data and 32 climate models, showing that this relationship holds everywhere except over polar seas, where an increased reflection by clouds corresponds to an increase in absorbed solar radiation at the surface. This interplay between clouds and sea ice reduces by half the increase of net radiation at the surface that follows the sea ice retreat.