Comment on comment by Markus Rapp and Franz-Josef Lübken on "Ice iron/sodium film as cause for high noctilucent cloud radar reflectivity"

Abstract

Rapp and Lübken (RL09) state that there is excellent, precise agreement between observations and polar mesosphere summer echo (PMSE) models based on radar reflection by gas‐phase electrons and conclude that because of this excellent, precise agreement other models should not be considered. In particular, they provide figures demonstrating quantitative agreement between observations and a heating/overshoot model. Careful consideration of the models presented by RL09 shows that there are inconsistencies in the assumptions regarding Lambda (i.e., the ratio of the number density of electrons attached to aerosol particles to the number density of free electrons) and there are quantitative errors in the calculation of the radar reflection. In addition, RL09's claim that the correlation between PMSE maximum and bite‐outs is either spurious or misrepresentative is refuted using radar measurements. Finally, it is shown that there is a shortcoming (not discussed by RL09) in the Bellan 2008 model, and a modification addressing this shortcoming is briefly described.

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