Circulation of the European northwest shelf: a Lagrangian perspective

Ricker, Marcel; Stanev, Emil V.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-637-2020

Articles | Volume 16, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-637-2020

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-637-2020

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

Articles | Volume 16, issue 3

Research article

|

25 May 2020

Research article |

| 25 May 2020

Circulation of the European northwest shelf: a Lagrangian perspective

Marcel Ricker and Emil V. Stanev

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Final revised paper (published on 25 May 2020)
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Preprint (discussion started on 09 Dec 2019)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 16 Jan 2020
- AC1: 'Reply to review comments of referee #1 (RC1)', Marcel Ricker, 11 Mar 2020
RC2: 'Review Comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 24 Jan 2020
- AC2: 'Reply to review comments of referee #2 (RC2)', Marcel Ricker, 11 Mar 2020

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Marcel Ricker on behalf of the Authors (12 Mar 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (16 Mar 2020) by Erik van Sebille

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (27 Mar 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review of 'Circulation of the European Northwest Shelf: A lagrangian perspective' by Ricker & Stanev.

I have read the revised document, and found it significantly improved. It can be accepted with minor changes.

I have two slightly more substantial points:

1. It is customary to present differences as 'scenario minus control'. The authors do the reverse, which makes it more difficult for me (and presumably many other readers) to interpret the plots/results. For instance, if tides are removed, and this results in a decrease in particle density somewhere, the difference plots show a positive value and vice versa. It is now clearly indicated how it was done, so not necessarily a show-stopper, but I would urge the authors to change this to improve the readability. It will likely also improve the narrative.

2. The conclusions are very much formulated in terms of the fate of particles. However, the particles (in this study) are a means to an end, rather than the purpose of the study, which is to learn more about the ocean dynamics. Should the conclusions be not refrased? In the very least, I think the authors should add a few lines to the conclusions on what they have learned about their first objective (l. 55).

I also have a few more minor remarks/suggestions/typos/grammar, which I list below.

l. 18. persist in yearly

l. 22. vertical velocities in

l. 31. contributions from

l. 34. has not yet been widely investigated.

l. 42. around the southwest of Ireland

l. 60. the fronts. Freshwater

l. 84. of the velocity field

l. 100. by tides, and eddies

l. 111. atmospheric model: please give the name and reference(s).

l. 113. climatological river runoff: please give the source of these data and reference(s).

l. 113. tidal forcing: please give the source of these data and reference(s).

l. 113. Please also provide information on the open boundary conditions for temperature and salinity.

l. 114, l. 128. 1 January

l. 135. to reduce the effect of direct wind drag

l. 153. 2-D: horizontal?

l. 174. stripe: I understand that in German, both strip and stripe are translated as 'Streife'. In English, however, the two are subtly different. A stripe typically has (is!) a different colour from the surroundings. A strip can be a composed of a different material, or can be just a designation. So at this location, 'strip' should be used. There are other locations in the manuscript where 'stripe' can be used – please check carefully throughout.

l. 184. particles were traced for

Figure 2b: change the text next to the colorbar into 'velocity amplitude'

Figure 2. It is still not clear from the document if the plotted quantities are for the surface, the bottom or depth-averaged. Please state this explicitly in the caption.

l. 258. Remove 'Dutch'. The Netherlands has no coasts in the German Bight.

l. 267. Atlantic water into the

l. 268. from satellite observations (Pietrzak et al., 2011) [they used the observations, but don't own them]

l. 269. East Anglian Plume

l. 279. Overall, Fig. 2a-f support

l. 356. 12.42 h: The figure says 12 h. Please change and make consistent.

l. 383. the continental slope.

l. 391. which drive particles away from the western

l. 394. occurs mainly and south: there's a bit of sentence missing here?

l. 396. 'narrow channel': has a name: the Silver Pit

l. 397. 'basin to its southeast': has a name: the Oyster Grounds

l. 407. remove: therein

l. 410. The instantaneous particle positions (??)

Figure 5. Please replace 'monthly average' by 'Annual mean'.

Conclusions: as each of these could be cited/taken out of context by others, it should be stated specifically that they hold for neutrally buoyant particles (particles with different properties may well give different results). So:

l. 619: accumulate neutrally buoyant particles

l. 625. accumulation areas for neutrally buoyant particles

l. 630. remove neutrally buoyant particles

l. 632. patterns for neutrally buoyant particles on the

To be completely accurate, the caveat that vertical turbulent diffusion of particles was neglected should be reiterated in the conclusions section.

l. 642. regimes at the 10 km scale. [The model does not resolve eddies slightly above and smaller than the horizontal resolution. These, however, do exist, especially near fronts and changes in topography. So this result may well be (or is very likely), at least to some extent, a model artifact!].

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RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (10 Apr 2020)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (10 Apr 2020) by Erik van Sebille

AR by Marcel Ricker on behalf of the Authors (17 Apr 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (20 Apr 2020) by Erik van Sebille

Short summary

The dynamics of the European northwest shelf are analysed using both classical Eulerian and Lagrangian data from simulated particles. Focussing on the latter, a quantity named normalised cumulative particle density measures particle accumulation. Yearly averages reveal no surface accumulation areas in the deep ocean and elongated patterns on the shelf mainly along fronts. Sensitivity experiments show the influence of tides and wind, unveiling important vertical dynamics in coastal areas.