Effects of vertical shear in modelling horizontal oceanic  dispersion

Lanotte, A. S.; Corrado, R.; Palatella, L.; Pizzigalli, C.; Schipa, I.; Santoleri, R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-12-207-2016

Articles | Volume 12, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-12-207-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Oceanographic processes on the continental shelf: observations...

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-12-207-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 1

Research article

|

03 Feb 2016

Research article |

| 03 Feb 2016

Effects of vertical shear in modelling horizontal oceanic dispersion

A. S. Lanotte, R. Corrado, L. Palatella, C. Pizzigalli, I. Schipa, and R. Santoleri

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Final revised paper (published on 03 Feb 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 02 Sep 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC C843: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #1, 11 Oct 2015
- AC C1327: 'Authors' reply to Reviewer 1', Alessandra Sabina Lanotte, 15 Dec 2015
RC C904: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #2, 14 Oct 2015
- AC C1328: 'Authors' reply to Reviewer 2', Alessandra Sabina Lanotte, 15 Dec 2015

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Alessandra Sabina Lanotte on behalf of the Authors (15 Dec 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (17 Dec 2015) by Lakshmi Kantha

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (06 Jan 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I found the paper significantly improved and I think my main concerns and suggestions have been satisfactorily addressed. I recommend the paper for publication after that the following minor points are revised. I do not need to see the final version of the paper.

Title. I suggest “Effects of vertical shear in modeling horizontal oceanic dispersion”

All trough the text rephrase “vertical velocity gradients (profiles)” with “vertical gradients (profiles) of horizontal velocities” to avoid possible misunderstandings.

Line 15 add references
Line 42-44 modify the phrase taking into account that recent coastal experiments (Schroeder et al, 2012, GRL) show results conflicting with exponential behavior
Line 44 “experiment” instead of “measurements”
Line 76: modify “diffusion in the upper ocean”
Line 100 add “(see Fig.1)”
Line 192 modify “gradients in the MFS model, that overrides the small scale fluctuations”
Line 194 rephrase, it is not clear
Line 201 “following” instead of “sequel”
Line 205, 242 add the references for the KLMs summarized
Line 257 “Numerical experiment set up” instead of “Results from numerical experiment”
Line 275 Modify with something like “In addition, we also compare results from these runs with results obtained in Lacorata et al (2014) considering MFS surface tracked particles (correct??) and drifters…. “
Line 310 Modify as “In Figure 5 we compare FSLE results from the 3 Series and results from Lacorata et al (2014) at the surface”
Line 332 Modify “This suggests that the dominant effect is the one associated with the MFS vertical shear”
Line 336 “overrides” instead of “covers”
Line 340-345 rephrase, it is not clear
Line 359 modify as “tracer particles in a Mediterranean Sea model”
Line 367 add “overestimated in the model”

Fig1 add dates corresponding to the 3 examples
Fig2 The ADCP location and the symbol description in not correct.

A few more general points

Discuss the fact that the ADCP results on vertical shear are significant with respect to measurement errors

Clarify in the Introduction that the vertical shear comparison between MFS and ADCP data is performed in one location only, and it does not therefore provide validation or statistical comparison. Rather, it is simply used as a specific example indicating differences between model and data, which in turns motivate the sensitivity study conducted using the results of Series 1,2,3.

I am not quite sure that the term “mixed layer” is used correctly in the present context.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (06 Jan 2016) by Lakshmi Kantha

AR by Alessandra Sabina Lanotte on behalf of the Authors (18 Jan 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (19 Jan 2016) by Lakshmi Kantha

Short summary

The paper investigates the role of vertical shear on the horizontal ocean dispersion of tracer particles or concentration fields. We compare in situ measurements to GCM numerical data of the magnitude and the typical timescale of the vertical shear. We discuss how an appropriate sub-grid-scale parameterization can account for an anomalous numerical shear dispersion due to the model poor time resolution. The analysis focuses on the mixing layer, and on the region of the south Mediterranean Sea.