the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 27 Feb 2026
Brief communication: First-year MRR observations at Great Wall Station, Antarctic Peninsula region
Abstract. We report the first-year (March 2024–November 2025) of observations of a Micro Rain Radar (MRR) deployed at Great Wall Station in the Antarctic Peninsula. We imposed quality control to raw MRR data and identified a surface precipitation (snowfall) occurrence of 0.32 (0.23). The median radar reflectivity of snowfall is approximately 9 dBZ, exhibiting minimal variation with height as caused by frequent shallow snowfall. Blowing snow can significantly increase (decrease) the snow occurrence (median radar reflectivity) to as high as 0.7 km. We further developed a localized Ze (equivalent radar reflectivity) – S (snowfall rate) parameterization, and identified a systematic underestimation of cumulative snowfall profiles in ERA5 products.
- Preprint
(1138 KB) - Metadata XML
- BibTeX
- EndNote
Status: open (until 21 Apr 2026)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-862', Christophe Genthon, 09 Mar 2026 reply
-
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-862', Anonymous Referee #2, 02 Apr 2026
reply
The manuscript presents preliminary results of the deployment of a Micro Rain Radar in the Antarctic Peninsula region. The manuscript describes the measurements conducted and provides statistics of precipitation occurrence (and, though uncertain, quantification) in the region, based on the MRR measurements and on reanalysis. The topic is interesting for the readership of the journal, although not novel in terms of methods and instruments. I recommend the author to better define the added value of this work, by focusing on how it complements and not just replicates similarinstallation efforts on the continent.
Comments- I wonder whether, given the fact that this is a short communication, the Introduction section should be reduced. Most of the considerations presented in the Introduction are already present in the cited literature. I would go more to-the-point regarding the added value of MRR measurements in this context and what has been already done (with respect to this instrument) in this environment.
- Figure 1. I would like to see this figure reorganized in a way that the temporal scale is well aligned in all the plots. Consider putting the map and the pictures in a separate figure.
- Section 2.2: please provide more information about the instrument setup (temporal reslution, range gate spacing, Doppler spectra resolution, etc) as this is the main focus of the paper, according to the title
- Figure 2, and comments about it in the text. Can you please comment about precipitationoccurrence with respect to the decrease in sensitivity / detectability as a function of range of weather radars?
- Section 3.2: as the station is not situated in a Katabatic-wind region (as stated in 3.1), I have some reserves on the stratification of data according to surface measurments, without telling the reader something more about the overall vertical structure of the atmosphere. As radar measurements below 300 m are not available, how can we imagine an influence / contamination between blowing snow and radar observations?
- Section 3.3. Here more information is needed about the gauge used to measure precipitation and its siting and wind sheltering. As this is supposedly the ground reference, it should be described more thoroughly, also to understand if it may significantly undercatch or not. Given the extreme spread of the points observable in Fig. 3 (a) and Fig 3 (b), the authors should try to provide an estimate of uncertainty of the Z-S relation and put some error bars around the estimates derived from them.
- Data availability: I recommend to make data available in an appropriate repository. As the manuscript added value is mostly about the MRR data themselves rather than physical interpretations or new insights, I believe that data should be made public.
Minor comments:
- A possibly relevant literature item is: https://doi.org/10.1049/SBRA557G_ch10
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-862-RC2
Viewed
| HTML | XML | Total | BibTeX | EndNote | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 169 | 51 | 18 | 238 | 15 | 34 |
- HTML: 169
- PDF: 51
- XML: 18
- Total: 238
- BibTeX: 15
- EndNote: 34
Viewed (geographical distribution)
| Country | # | Views | % |
|---|
| Total: | 0 |
| HTML: | 0 |
| PDF: | 0 |
| XML: | 0 |
- 1
Please see attached commented manuscript