Methods to retrieve the complex refractive index of aquatic suspended particles: going beyond simple shapes

Sánchez, Albert-Miquel; Piera, Jaume

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4081-2016

Articles | Volume 13, issue 14

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4081-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4081-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 14

Research article

|

18 Jul 2016

Research article |

| 18 Jul 2016

Methods to retrieve the complex refractive index of aquatic suspended particles: going beyond simple shapes

Albert-Miquel Sánchez and Jaume Piera

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Final revised paper (published on 18 Jul 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 24 Nov 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC C8634: 'Referee comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 Dec 2015
- RC C9713: 'Peer review of "Methods Comparison to Retrieve the Refractive Index of Small Scatterers"', Anonymous Referee #2, 13 Feb 2016
  - AC C10457: 'Answer to comments of Reviewer 2', Albert-Miquel Sánchez, 05 Apr 2016
- AC C10447: 'Answer to comments of Reviewer 1', Albert-Miquel Sánchez, 05 Apr 2016

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (13 Apr 2016) by Emmanuel Boss

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (18 Apr 2016) by Emmanuel Boss

AR by Albert-Miquel Sánchez on behalf of the Authors (18 Apr 2016)

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (20 Apr 2016) by Emmanuel Boss

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (30 Apr 2016)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (10 May 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Even though the authors have tried to revise the manuscript following the comments, the paper is still difficult to read. It seems the revision was done in a haste, resulting in a disorganized and messy presentation. Here are just two examples:

For Figure 6:
1. wavelength in (a) is in nanometer but in (b) is in micrometer?
2. The y scales of (a) and (b) should be the same.
3. The legend says “initial” index values, but the caption says “assumed” index values - need to be consistent.
4. Line 339 refer to Figure 6b as the results of Stramski Model, but the figure caption says it is the Bernard model.

For Figure 8:
1. The caption and legends are not consistent in either (a) or (b).

Here are other comments
1. Rewrite Sections 2.1 and 2.2. For example, Section 2.1 introduces F(D), the particle size distribution, but did not mention anything of <CEXT> etc, which were later used in Section 2.2 without explaining how they are computed.

2. What is “Txebixev” in Table 1?

3. Twardowski et al. (2001) gives the real part of the refractive index.

4. Lines 262-267: Have you encountered ill-posed inversion in your study? How did you deal with it?

5. Figure 11. Why not compare the retrieved refractive indices with the assumed ones directly in Figure 8?

6. I don't think Fig. 1 is relevant and needed here.

Proper citing of references:
1. There are many important and landmark papers on how interaction of light and particles alters the color of the ocean. Citing Andrady (2011) and Cole et al. (2011), both on microplastics, though may be of interest, shows a lack of general knowledge of the field.

2. I’m not sure Quirantes and Bernard (2006), Stramski et al. (2001), or Twardowski et al. (2001) have anything to do with T-Matrix, which were cited in Lines 27-29.

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (11 May 2016) by Emmanuel Boss

AR by Albert-Miquel Sánchez on behalf of the Authors (03 Jun 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (12 Jun 2016) by Emmanuel Boss

AR by Albert-Miquel Sánchez on behalf of the Authors (03 Jul 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (04 Jul 2016) by Emmanuel Boss

AR by Albert-Miquel Sánchez on behalf of the Authors (05 Jul 2016) Manuscript

Short summary

In this paper, several methods for the retrieval of the refractive indices are used in three different examples modeling different shapes and particle size distributions. The error associated with each method is discussed and analyzed. It is finally demonstrated that those inverse methods using a genetic algorithm provide optimal estimations relative to other techniques that, although faster, are less accurate.