the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Atmospheric electricity observations by Reinhold Reiter around Garmisch-Partenkirchen
R. Giles Harrison
Kristian Schlegel
Abstract. Atmospheric electricity measurements were made at several sites close to Garmisch-Partenkirchen during four decades from 1950 to 1990 by Dr Reinhold Reiter, together with other environmental measurements. The quantities determined include the atmospheric potential gradient, the vertical current and the ion concentrations, and observations made at the Mount Wank site (1780 m, 47° 30' N, 11° 09' E) from 1st August 1972 to 31st December 1983 are available in digital form.
R. Giles Harrison and Kristian Schlegel
Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on hgss-2023-4', Anonymous Referee #1, 07 Mar 2023
Firstly, I would like to thank the Authors for submitting their valuable research. Making historical data available is beneficial for all the scientific community. The manuscript is concise and logically structured. It contains six short sections introducing the research topic, the data, the measurement sites, and apparatus; describing the recovered parameters; discussing some results, and ultimately drawing the conclusions. The manuscript is fully in line with the scope of the journal and makes an important scientific contribution, therefore, I recommend it for publication with listing some minor comments below which the Authors can consider implementing.
Specific comments:
1, Fig. 1.: It would make the map easier to understand if you could include a scale bar indicating the distances.
2, Fig. 2/a.: Please, include the unit (%?) of the relative Carnegie curve on a second y axis and specify the time zone on the x axis (Coordinated Universal Time?).
3, Fig. 2.: Correlations coefficients could be included both on panel (a) (between the Wank and Carnegie curves) and on panel (b) (between the Lerwick and Wank curves).
4, Section 5, Discussion: Could you please describe briefly why you used only December values?
5, Including a histogram of the PG data as a separate figure could add more information to section 4. Data recovery (or including it as a subplot in Fig. 2.).
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-2023-4-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', R.Giles Harrison, 15 Mar 2023
We thank the reviewer for considering our manuscript and for the positive points made.
On the specific points made:
We agree it will be useful to add a scale to figure 1.
We will add the % variation to the Carnegie curve where needed, and improve the figure further by including data from the other months. In fact, the original Carnegie data was reported in GMT, but using UTC, as suggested, is equivalent and widely understood.
We will add correlation coefficients and the probabilities of chance correlation. For the existing figure 2 these are (a) r=0.96 (p=0.0002) and for (b) r= 0.83 (p=0.03).
Our reason for using the December values is that, so far, only December values have been keyed from the Lerwick atmospheric electricity archive, and these values are readily available in the University of Reading data repository.
We will provide additional information on the PG, both by including a histogram and summarising the range of the values.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-2023-4-AC1
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', R.Giles Harrison, 15 Mar 2023
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RC2: 'Comment on hgss-2023-4', Anonymous Referee #2, 07 Mar 2023
Harrison and Schlegel have made available meteorological and electrical parameters recorded at Mount Wank for the period 1 August 1972 to 31 December 1983. The article is well written, clear and worthy of publication. However, in the reviewer's opinion, it would be good if the authors could clarify a couple of points in the manuscript.
1. Section 3: PG measurements were recorded with two different sensors (radioactive collector probe and electric field mill). It was not clear to this reviewer if the available measurements are made with these two sensors, or if it was first made with one sensor and then with the other sensor?........... Is this the explanation why there is a step change in the PG measurements after March 15, 1976?
2. Section 5: In the opinion of this reviewer the discussion section should be improved. My suggestion is to go further into the figures. For example:
Figure 2a: Why the Wank curve has a peak at ~14-15 UT (clearly different from the maximum peak of the Carnegie curve). Maybe the method using the median is not the most appropriate?
Figure 2b. What is the explanation of the 2 PG minimima values found at both sites in 1978 and 1981? The decline trend in PG values at Wank is greater than Lerwick site, is this due to an instrumental effect?
Minor comment: Line 32: Reiter
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-2023-4-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', R.Giles Harrison, 15 Mar 2023
We appreciate the attention given to the paper and the insightful and helpful comments made.
Concerning the step change, the origin is unfortunately not known, nor is the precise use of the different sensors. We will mention the existence of the step change in the revised text because of its importance to analysis of the data.
In terms of the daily PG variation and the differences from the Carnegie curve, local meteorological factors can influence the values at different times of day. We have considered the possibility that the time synchronisation is inaccurate, but the decreases at the end of the day in both curves are exactly coincident, suggesting that this is not the explanation. Irregular sampling is another possibility, but use of the mean instead of the median, also does not resolve the question.
Clearly, a rather more extensive investigation is needed, but our object here is primarily to ensure the data is known and available to other researchers. We will seek in a revision to represent the diurnal variation more completely across all the months, whilst retaining the Carnegie curve for comparison. Our emphasis is intended on summarising the data and demonstrating its value rather than providing a full analysis.
The origin of the 1970s variations have been addressed in a recent paper, which was not published when the draft of this HGSSD manuscript was written. In this paper, (R.G. Harrison, K.A. Nicoll, M. Joshi, E. Hawkins, Empirical evidence for multidecadal scale Global Atmospheric Electric Circuit modulation by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, Environ Res Lett 17, 124048, 2022 https://tinyurl.com/bdh9jehn ) it is shown that, in the interval concerned, the variations yielding the PG variations arise from the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, through its effect on modifying the global distribution of current-generating storms.
For the trend, there could be many sources, such as global circuit changes reduction in aerosol loading, or, as suggested, an instrumental effect. This was, to some extent, discussed in the 2004 paper, but unfortunately inconclusively.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-2023-4-AC2
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', R.Giles Harrison, 15 Mar 2023
R. Giles Harrison and Kristian Schlegel
R. Giles Harrison and Kristian Schlegel
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