Interdecadal Changes of the MERRA-2 Incoming Surface Solar Radiation (SSR) and Evaluation against GEBA & BSRN Stations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript appears ready publishing

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

_{This study is about the assessment of the 40-year  Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications v.2 (MERRA-2) surface solar radiation and its interdecadal changes against high quality surface measurements from Global Energy Balance Archive and Baseline Surface Radiation Network stations. The design and structure of the system, as well as the outcomes, were described and explained perfectly. The results represent a good agreement. Taking the notes into the account is essential before acceptance.}

_{— Organize a section for the symbols used in the study.}

_{— It would be important to make the figures clearer and bigger.}

_{— Clarifying the methodology used in this paper.}

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have well presented their research background. In addition, their results were analyzed and discussed carefully, which provides significant guideline for related researchers. Therefore, I recommond this manuscript to be published after the below format revision. 

For example, in page 2, somar reference number was placed at the most front position in the sentence ( e.g., [22] suggested that the greenhouse warming...). I suggest to replace the number with other more suitable nouns such as "This work".

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

This article discussing Interdecadal changes of the MERRA-2 incoming surface solar radiation (SSR) and evaluation against GEBA & BSRN stations is very interesting, using big data analysis and trend lines to find the trend of solar radiation changes, but I still have a few problems.

1.  The abstract is confusingly written and needs to be re-corrected.

2. Abbreviations in the article (such as RMSE) need to be written in full, GEWEX please confirm whether it is correct.

3. It is recommended that this article emphasize novelty in the abstract and in the text.

4. Fig. 1 indicates that there are (i-a) and (i-b) errors and suggested revisions.

5. Tables 2-4 the error value is very large. It is recommended to strengthen the explanation.

Author Response

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Reviewer 5 Report

- The main contribution and novelty of this work should be more clear.

- The methods section should contain a block diagram of the steps in conducting the research.

- Adding unit axis to figure 3.

- The author should compare the research results of the article with the research results of other solar energy potential maps of companies such as Solar Gis....

 

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Authors describes many parameters and corresponding data in the abstract, but cannot see the contribution and novelty of this article. You need to use these parameters and corresponding data to illustrate the special features of this article, otherwise it is just a paragraph.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf