the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 12 Oct 2026
A foundation diagnostic framework reveals more frequent yet spatially shrinking local atmospheric circulations over plateau-basin regions
Abstract. Local atmospheric circulations critically affect hazardous weather and environment forecasting, yet their vertical structures remain unclear. Here, a foundational physical-constrained framework for objectively identifying and quantifying the vertical structures of terrain-driven circulations is developed and applied over the Tibetan Plateau (TP)-Sichuan Basin. Three typical circulation patterns, i.e., one-cell, two-cell, and three-cell circulations are detected for the first time, enabling quantification of their intensity, spatial extent, and central height. Results indicate that free-atmosphere circulations present higher altitudes and weaker intensity than boundary-layer circulations. For two- and three-cell patterns, west circulations adjacent to the TP expand and weaken during daytime but contract and descend at nighttime. From 1980 to 2022, local atmospheric circulations become more frequent while spatial extent shrink, suggesting enhanced localization of frequent convective weather and air pollution. These findings provide a basis for vertical quantification of terrain-driven circulations, supporting operational forecasting of hazardous weather and environment over plateau-basin regions.
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Status: open (until 23 Nov 2026)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-5585', Anonymous Referee #1, 27 Oct 2026 reply
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General Comments
This study develops a physics-constrained framework to identify and characterize the vertical structures of local atmospheric circulations. The authors use hourly ERA5 reanalysis data from 1980 to 2022 to construct a vertical stream function on the zonal–vertical cross-section over the Tibetan Plateau–Sichuan Basin. By identifying closed centres of isolines and closed circulations in the u–w wind field, they classify one-cell, two-cell, and three-cell local circulations, and analyze their multi-dimensional features and long-term changes. The topic is of clear scientific and practical relevance, and the framework has some methodological novelty. However, the current manuscript does not provide sufficient technical detail in the methods section for the results to be reproduced. And the identified circulations are not validated against any observations or independent data.
Specific Comments
Technical Corrections
There are some spelling and grammatical errors need to be corrected, including “wind filed” (Line 112), “exiting” (Line 125), “In details” (appearing multiple times; should be “In detail”), “either daytime and nighttime” (Line 217; “and” should be replaced with “or”), “They yield provide” (Line 262), and “which makes fail to capture” (Line 269). The entire manuscript would benefit from thorough professional language editing to improve its clarity, grammatical accuracy, and overall readability.