CLAAS-3: the third edition of the CM SAF cloud data record based on SEVIRI observations

Benas, Nikos; Solodovnik, Irina; Stengel, Martin; Hüser, Imke; Karlsson, Karl-Göran; Håkansson, Nina; Johansson, Erik; Eliasson, Salomon; Schröder, Marc; Hollmann, Rainer; Meirink, Jan Fokke

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5153-2023

Articles | Volume 15, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5153-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5153-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 11

Data description paper

|

27 Nov 2023

Data description paper |

| 27 Nov 2023

CLAAS-3: the third edition of the CM SAF cloud data record based on SEVIRI observations

Nikos Benas, Irina Solodovnik, Martin Stengel, Imke Hüser, Karl-Göran Karlsson, Nina Håkansson, Erik Johansson, Salomon Eliasson, Marc Schröder, Rainer Hollmann, and Jan Fokke Meirink

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Final revised paper (published on 27 Nov 2023)
Preprint (discussion started on 06 Jun 2023)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on essd-2023-79', Caroline Poulsen, 13 Jun 2023

General Comments
The paper summarises the new reprocessing of the SEVIRI satellite cloud property data set. The data set has been extended in time, both forwards and backwards and additional parameters have been added such as cloud geometrical thickness and cloud droplet number concentration. The quality of the data set is high and it is clear a lot of work has gone into assessing the underly FCDR as well as the L2 and L3 products. The data set will be useful for many different weather and climate studies.
The paper is very thorough, products have been validated and compared at level2 (swath) and at level3 (monthly).
The products have been evaluated with the most appropriate reference data sets and with aircraft flight campaign data. It was very pleasing to see discussion of uncertainties on the data set and even evaluation of the uncertainty of the LWP data set, this is in line with best practice.
The paper is very clearly written and I found very few technical errors
Specific Comments
For the comparison of CTH with Calipso it would have been good to see a plot of the standard deviation (Figure 8) and/or some discussion on what compensating errors there could be for example boundary layer clouds could be too high (miss classification of inversions) while cirrus clouds too low.
Figure 10 why are there negative values of LWP AMSR2?
Section 4.5 have the authors considered that the difference between CLASS and MODIS could also be due to different liquid/ice cloud fractions?

Technical errors
line 337 insert new line
while it maybe obvious that the x-axis in plots is year it would still be good to have this labelled.
x-axis labelling on Figure 13

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-79-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Nikos Benas, 25 Aug 2023
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2023-79/essd-2023-79-AC1-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-79-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on essd-2023-79', Anonymous Referee #2, 26 Jul 2023

Attached please find the detailed comments for this paper.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-79-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Nikos Benas, 25 Aug 2023
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2023-79/essd-2023-79-AC2-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-79-AC2
EC1: 'Comment on essd-2023-79', Tobias Gerken, 26 Jul 2023

Dear authors,
I would like to take the time to thank the reviewers for their time and care.
You are invited to prepare a careful response to the reviewers' comments. As you can see from the comment there are differing perspectives on the current state of the manuscript and data. Because the utility of the cloud product hinges on its accuracy established by comparison wiht other sources, I recommend to carefully look at reviewer 2's comments on the underlying quality of the comparison data and choice of data products.
Best regards,
Tobias Gerken

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-79-EC1

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload

AR by Nikos Benas on behalf of the Authors (21 Sep 2023) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (21 Sep 2023) by Tobias Gerken

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (10 Oct 2023)

ED: Publish as is (11 Oct 2023) by Tobias Gerken

AR by Nikos Benas on behalf of the Authors (12 Oct 2023)

Short summary

This paper describes CLAAS-3, the third edition of the Cloud property dAtAset using SEVIRI, which was created based on observations from geostationary Meteosat satellites. CLAAS-3 cloud properties are evaluated using a variety of reference datasets, with very good overall results. The demonstrated quality of CLAAS-3 ensures its usefulness in a wide range of applications, including studies of local- to continental-scale cloud processes and evaluation of climate models.