After reading the revised manuscript and the author reply, I have the impression that the authors have responded appropriately to the reviewer comments. This revised version of the manuscript reads much better, and is more logically organized in terms of structure and content. After these revision, a few additional items stand out more clearly now that should be further improved. Most of the improvements concern the writing, and none of these points is major, so I consider this iteration a minor revision.
Minor comments:
1. The writing in the introduction can be improved. There are a couple of statements that would benefit from a reference, and where the connection and logic are not clear or not consistent.
2. The comparison of source properties between different components in Sec. 2.2.1 would need a form of variability quantification to be interpretable. The differences are similarly small for wind, temperature, and humidity, and it is not fully clear why wind is discussed specifically. Is it really surprising that wind speed is the main modulator in terms of evaporation strengh, given the absence of large land regions that can supply dry air (the other component of evaporation)?
3. Sec. 3.3, regarding source temperatures, the results does not exactly match the literature, as is being argued. Also, how large is the variability (1 sig std)? Can some of the discrepancy be explained by a differing regional focus of previous studies? A similar quantification would be useful to assess the significance of the apparently very small differences of rh2m and wind10 in different regions that are discussed in the same paragraph.
4. Limitation of model in simulating storms, precipitation are never addressed. How much do we learn about the actual precipitation in Antarctica, and how much do we learn about how the model simulates precipitation in Antarctica?
5. The method description mentions some modifications compared to Fiorella et al., 2021, and one has to go to the appendix to learn about what these modifications are and what uncertainties that imposes. I would strongly favour mentioning specifically what is modified in comparison to Fiorella when referring to the Appendix in the main text, so that readers know what they will find there. Also, the information about a <2% mass balance error from the imposed flux limits should be stated in the main text. Clearly, such an error margin will be relevant when discussing the precipitation for different amount categories (Sec. 3.4, Fig. 10).
Detailed comments:
L. 7 onwards: wind10 is uncommon and not specific in terms of wind speed or wind direction. I suggest changing to the more commonly used and specific abbreviation vel10 (for wind velocity).
L. 17: "first time has been quantified" the highly emphasised significance of this finding remains unclear. Is it not enough to state the finding without the "first time" claim? Considering also that this is a statement about a model, not about nature (i.e. wind measurements).
L. 23: add reference to 2nd sentence
L. 25: not clear what "this" refers to, rewrite
L. 37: "surprisingly little": I would disagree that surprisingly litte is known about Antarctic precipitation in general. But there are for sure important knowledge gaps when it comes to precipitation at high latitudes. Consider rephrasing by stating specifically what (relevant) knowledge gaps exist. In its present form, the statement sounds a bit like the knowledge gap is with the authors - clearly a misinterpretation to try and avoid.
L. 39 onward: The sentences in this paragraph lack logical connection and stringency. Statements such as "tend to occur", "is conducive for" and "occur alongside" create a strange disconnect (as if coincidental) between dynamically deeply connected and interrelated aspects of the atmospheric flow. Please rephrase.
L. 46: "are mainly known" - I don't think this is a correct statement, both aspects of these precipitation events are well documented in literature
L. 48: "is useful for predicting" this could potentially be the case, but I miss the supporting evidence for this statement in the way that is written here. It is also unclear why you raise this point here, would this not be more something for the implication of the study?
L. 59: "it is not yet clear how SAM variations...": this statement contradicts the available knowledge about how SAM influences precipitation in the previous sentence. Maybe instead highlight specific aspects where additional knowledge gaps exist?
L. 125: consider simplifying this equation and writing by using simpler but equally accepted/established symbols such as q_s, q_2m
L. 138 onwards: "quite close", "very similar": these expressions express a subjective judgement. Can this be phrased more objectively. Adding a small table for all assessed variables would be useful.
L. 140: clarify how this bias is computed, what is the reference?
L. 150: "Furthermore" does not connect well to the previous sentences, since this is a disadvantage of the scaled-flux water tracing method.
L. 153: "Finally" does not appear logical here, since there is no connection between this higher-level comparison of both Eulerian approaches to Lagrangian methods. Maybe you could expand a sentence that explains that this is a more general comparison?
L. 155, Section 2.3: These thresholds are still extremely small in comparison to numbers that can be obtained in the real world situations on a daily basis. With typical snow density, these thresholds would translate to a 0.2 mm and 0.02 mm thick snow layer. I understand that it is possible to use such threshold values in a model context, but some statement mentioning the limited transferability of such threshold values to the real world are advised. The need to use differing definitions of heavy and light precipitation days is evidence of this fact. Some models can produce extremely small precipitation rates for extended periods of time, which affects the lower 10th percentile.
L. 173: "Though it is lower" - rephrase
L. 175: "This could partly ..." - those are vastly different explanations. What are the concrete consequences of smoothed topography in the model, and how likely is it that the model is more correct than the accumulation reconstruction?
L. 238: "It suggests that..." this sentence does not add new insight, and is in addition vague. Can something more firmly be extracted from this analysis?
L. 254: "This narrow range" - can you expand how the narrow range connects to the role of cyclones? Is there a specific reason why you mention both cyclones and storm tracks?
L. 258 onwards: Firstly - Secondly are quite far apart and thus hard to relate, rephrase
L. 259: unclear, where can this decoupling be seen?
L.281: "the modelling results" rephrase such that it becomes clear that you refer to your own modelling results here
L. 338: It would be good to differentiate here between a model perspective and nature. For example, add to this sentence "in a climate model framework".
L. 335: The conclusions should also list some limitations of this study and the overall approach. For example, the limitations of model-simulated precipitation in Antarctic, and the rather coarse resolution of the simulation, which affects the realism of cyclones and fronts, maritime air intrusions, and so on. If you think critically, how much can ultimately be learned about the nature of Antarctic precipitation from this new tool?
L. 361: The wind may be linked to cyclones, but also to other features, and simply pressure gradients. Does the wind only play a emphasized role in the evaporation flux variability because of the absence of land regions which could lead to variations in RH?
L. 369: I suggest the last paragraph be rewritten to improve the flow and connection between these sentences. Right now they appear merely as an unsorted list. |
