Effects of Aerosols and Clouds on the Levels of Surface Solar Radiation and Solar Energy in Cyprus

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. The introduction should be supported by more literature on the interactions among aerosols (especially dust aerosols), clouds, and solar radiation. Can you enrich the content here?
2. In 2.1, the text describing the ground based and satellite datasets was verbose and cumbersome. Maybe you can simplify it a little bit and put the key information in a table or something like that to make this part more intuitive.
3. There is something wrong with the table name and format in Table 2. Can you modify it?
4. It is recommended to check the alignment of the chart and its name throughout the whole text.
5. In both Figure 5 and Figure 7, the horizontal values are the first letter of every month, which may cause confusion. It is recommended to add a brief description or change the horizontal axis value in the text.
6. It is recommended to adjust the length of the legend bar in Figure 6 so that it does not look too abrupt with the main image. The description of Figure 6 in this paper feels a little inconsistent with figure, and there is less relevant content.
7. Can you adjust the spacing and layout of legend and main figure in Figure 5 and Figure 7?
8. The color of the coordinate axes in Figure 12 is not uniform and the overall color is light. Could you modify it?
9. In 3.5, maybe it’s better to add a study choosing one axis solar tracking PV system.

Author Response

We thank reviewer#1 for his/her comments. A point-by-point reply accompanied by the manuscript with tracked changes can be found in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Referees synopsis

The authors present an extensive study to demonstrate the decrease in solar surface radiation and solar energy production due to the impact of clouds and aerosols.  

Overall, the manuscript is well structured and written. The study is conducted carefully and will be of large interest in several fields of application. In my opinion, the introductive part could be shortened, but besides a few typos it is ready for publication.

Major review points

None

Minor review points

• Line 29, 99, 152, 287, 520, 700: CM SAF instead of CMSAF
• Line 34-35: GHI & DNI not defined yet

Some abbreviations are defined in the abstract and some are not. Please be consistent. In general, this study uses many abbreviations (some are even a little unusual for me) and you have to read very carefully to find the definitions of each one (sometimes it is defined in a table). An abbreviation list or maybe multiple definitions at important points might help the reader.

• Line 104: CSP?
• Line 159: no validation results for SARAH (-> brief in Sec. 2.3)

There are no uncertainties given for SARAH data, but for other data. This should be consistent with the other mentioned datasets.  

• Line 252: delete comma
• Line 294: SARAH2.1 till 2017, SARAH2 till 2015 -> other DOI

It’s a little unclear which time period of SARAH data was applied in this study. Please keep in mind that SARAH2 covers 1983 to 2015, while SARAH2.1 covers 1983 to 2017. SARAH2.1 has a different doi than SARAH2.

Pfeifroth, Uwe; Kothe, Steffen; Trentmann, Jörg; Hollmann, Rainer; Fuchs, Petra; Kaiser, Johannes; Werscheck, Martin (2019): Surface Radiation Data Set - Heliosat (SARAH) - Edition 2.1, Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring, DOI:10.5676/EUM_SAF_CM/SARAH/V002_01, https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.5676/EUM_SAF_CM/SARAH/V002_01.

• Line 320: CMSAF cloud product?

‘CMSAF cloud product’ seems to be a confusing term in this context. I understand that SARAH data were used to derive CMF, but SARAH still is a radiation data record. Maybe just use CMSAF-SARAH2 in this case.

• Line 385: Figure 4 or 5?
• Line 546: September
• Line 700: SARAH2.1 does not directly account for changes in elevation

SARAH2.1 accounts for elevation only indirectly via the underlying auxiliary data for water vapour, ozone and aerosols (which in addition have a coarser resolution).  

Author Response

We thank reviewer#2 for his/her comments. A point-by-point reply accompanied by the manuscript with tracked changes can be found in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The Authors presented an interesting study about “Effects of aerosols and clouds on the levels of surface solar radiation and solar energy in Cyprus”. The data and methods used in the study are well described. Generally, the study is comprehensive and of potential interest to scientists in the related fields. The manuscript could be recommended for publication after minor revision.

1. Can you adjust the spacing and layout between the legend and the main image in Figures 5 and 7? The current layout is rather crowded, maybe you can modify it by referring to the pattern shown in Figure 6.
2. The significance of solar radiation is not clear. Perhaps you can refer to the articles " Comparison of deterministic and data-driven models for solar radiation estimation in China " and "Solar Brightness/Brightness over Mainland China: Effects of Atmospheric Aerosols, Anthropological Emissions and Meteorological Conditions" in the Introduction.

Author Response

We thank the anonymous reviewer for his/her comments. We believe that the comments have been addressed properly. In particular:

Comment

Can you adjust the spacing and layout between the legend and the main image in Figures 5 and 7? The current layout is rather crowded, maybe you can modify it by referring to the pattern shown in Figure 6.

Reply

The spacing and the layout has been changed according to reviewer recommendation.

Comment

The significance of solar radiation is not clear. Perhaps you can refer to the articles " Comparison of deterministic and data-driven models for solar radiation estimation in China " and "Solar Brightness/Brightness over Mainland China: Effects of Atmospheric Aerosols, Anthropological Emissions and Meteorological Conditions" in the Introduction.

Reply

We added information regarding the significance of solar radiation as suggested by the reviewer (see lines 77 - 80) in the version with tracked changes. However, the references we provide are not those recommended by the reviewer. We cited papers which, in our opinion, are more suitable than those recommended by the reviewer.

The version with tracked changes is attached for more information.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf