In-situ microphysical characterization of low-level clouds in the Finnish sub-Arctic, extensive dataset

Abstract. Continuous, semi-long-term, ground based in-situ cloud measurements were conducted during eight Pallas Cloud Experiments (PaCE) held in autumns between 2004 and 2019. Campaigns were carried out in the Finnish sub-Arctic region at the Sammaltunturi station (67°58′24′′ N, 24°06′58′′ E; 560 m MSL), the part of Pallas Atmosphere – Ecosystem Supersite and Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) program. Two cloud spectrometer ground setups and a weather station were installed on the roof of the station to measure in-situ cloud properties and several meteorological variables. Thus, the obtained data sets include the size distribution of cloud droplets as a measured cloud parameter along with the temperature, dew point temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed and direction, (global solar) sun radiation and visibility at the station. Additionally, the number concentration, effective diameter, median volume diameter and liquid water content from each instrument were derived. The presented data sets provide a great insight into microphysics of low-level clouds in sub-Arctic conditions over a wide range of temperatures (includes cloud cases with temperature from -25.8 to 8.8 °C). The data are available from the FMI open data repository for each campaign and each cloud spectrometer ground setup individually: https://doi.org/10.23728/FMI-B2SHARE.988739D21B824C709084E88ED6C6D54B (Doulgeris et al., 2021).


L43: Data sets that have been obtained from measurements in sub-Arctic clouds are of high value since cloud processes are considered as an important component of climate change in the Arctic… L45: The main objective during PaCE… L46: In this work, we present a unique dataset -in other places you use 'data sets', please use dataset. Also it's not clear throughout the text which dataset/datasets you are referring to in each sentence e.g. dataset of a single instruments or the whole dataset L48: This dataset can be used in studies of cloud microphysics, climate change in the sub-Arctic, and performance evaluation and improvement of existing models, in particular at higher latitudes.
L49: In the next section, we provide a description of the sampling location, instrumentation, and the methodology we used for sampling, data processing, and quality control. L66: The predominant origin of air masses arriving at Sammaltunturi is from… L68: The main motivation to perform in-situ cloud measurements at the Sammaltunturi was that the station is occasionally immersed in a cloud.
L69: measurements was autumn when the horizontal visibility drops bellows… L70: Once the preferable time of the year was identified, we started to conduct… L71: The "Pallas Cloud Experiments" were, usually, 6-8 weeks… L72: occasionally extended to the beginning of December.
L117: significantly shorter than the duration of the campaign. The FSSP-100 was widely used L118: 'widely used' but you provide only one reference from 1989? L118: CAS and FSSP-100 derive the size of the particle from the intensity of the forward scattered… L121: whereby single particles pass through a collimated laser beam and their shadow is projected… L122: The count of the particle is dependent on the change in the light intensity of each diode.
L124: perform calibration at the FMI, on top of manufacturer calibration, to ensure the quality of the collected?processed? data.
L125: CAS and FSSP-100, glass beads… L128: (Baldor, Reliance, USA), which was working as an aspiration system. -please change everywhere to aspiration system. L194: In Fig. 6, we show the percentage of the data set for each year in which the Global solar radiation was higher than 0. It was used to estimate the amount of data collected in each campaign in day light.
L196: In addition, an overview… L196: Thus, in Figs. 7-9 -you mention three figures in one sentence, without any further discussion, this should be expanded significantly.
L198: each campaign and for FSSP-100 and CAS ground setups, respectively. L223: Such semi long observations are difficult to obtain in similar environments due to current lack of instrumentation -this sentence should probably be elaborated further, instead of text repetitions like in lines 224-226.