Semimonthly oscillation observed in the start times of equatorial plasma bubbles

Paulino, Igo; Paulino, Ana Roberta; Cueva, Ricardo Y. C.; Agyei-Yeboah, Ebenezer; Buriti, Ricardo Arlen; Takahashi, Hisao; Wrasse, Cristiano Max; Santos, Ângela M.; Fragoso de Medeiros, Amauri; Batista, Inez S.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-38-437-2020

Articles | Volume 38, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-38-437-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

7th Brazilian meeting on space geophysics and aeronomy

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-38-437-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 38, issue 2

Regular paper

|

31 Mar 2020

Regular paper |

| 31 Mar 2020

Semimonthly oscillation observed in the start times of equatorial plasma bubbles

Igo Paulino, Ana Roberta Paulino, Ricardo Y. C. Cueva, Ebenezer Agyei-Yeboah, Ricardo Arlen Buriti, Hisao Takahashi, Cristiano Max Wrasse, Ângela M. Santos, Amauri Fragoso de Medeiros, and Inez S. Batista

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Final revised paper (published on 31 Mar 2020)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 02 May 2019)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Comments on the manuscript entitled “semimonthly oscillation observed in the start time of equatorial spread-F” by Igo Paulino et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 Jun 2019
- AC1: 'Reply to the Reviewer 1', Igo Paulino, 02 Sep 2019
- AC3: 'Manuscript', Igo Paulino, 02 Sep 2019
- AC4: 'Tracked changes manuscript', Igo Paulino, 02 Sep 2019
RC2: 'Review on "Semimonthly oscillation observed in the start time of equatorial Spread-F" by Paulino et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 08 Jun 2019
- AC2: 'Reply to the Reviewer 2', Igo Paulino, 02 Sep 2019
- AC5: 'Manuscript', Igo Paulino, 02 Sep 2019
- AC6: 'Tracked chnages Manuscript', Igo Paulino, 02 Sep 2019

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (02 Oct 2019) by Fabiano Rodrigues

AR by Igo Paulino on behalf of the Authors (03 Oct 2019)

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 Oct 2019) by Fabiano Rodrigues

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (07 Nov 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review on "Semimonthly oscillation observed in the start time of equatorial plasma bubbles" by Paulino et al.

In the first round, I suggested that the authors should (1) improve the introduction to clarify which parts of the results are new, and (2) confirm the existence of the lunar tidal variation statistically, because fitting a semimonthly (14.5d) curve to small data segments does not prove the lunar tidal influence.

I see that the authors have improved the manuscript. Concerning (1), I am satisfied with the introduction of the revised manuscript. Concerning (2), the authors responded by including a new figure that shows the lunar-time dependence of EPB based on all the available data (Figure 4).

In Figure 4, the authors also show a fit of the semimonthly curve with one standard deviation and claim that the semimonthly variation in the EPB onset time is statistically significant. However, the statistical significance of the result is not clear from the figure or text. The amplitude of the semimonthly variation is 10.82 min, while the standard deviation is 20.12 min. This seems to suggest that there is actually no evidence for the semimonthly variation in the EPB onset time. I suggest that the authors should explain how the statistical significance was evaluated. Also, the authors could improve Figure 4 so that the reader can see the lunar tidal variation. One way to do that is to calculate the mean value at each hourly interval of lunar time and plot the mean values against lunar time, together with their corresponding standard error of the mean. See, for example, Figure 2 of Forbes et al. (2013).

Forbes, J. M., Zhang, X., Bruinsma, S., & Oberheide, J. (2013). Lunar semidiurnal tide in the thermosphere under solar minimum conditions. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 118(4), 1788-1801.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (08 Nov 2019)

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (22 Nov 2019) by Fabiano Rodrigues

AR by Igo Paulino on behalf of the Authors (23 Nov 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (25 Nov 2019) by Fabiano Rodrigues

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (23 Dec 2019)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (23 Dec 2019) by Fabiano Rodrigues

AR by Igo Paulino on behalf of the Authors (24 Dec 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (09 Jan 2020) by Fabiano Rodrigues

AR by Igo Paulino on behalf of the Authors (19 Jan 2020) Manuscript

Short summary

In this paper, an extensive study has been done in order to investigate periodic oscillations in the start times of equatorial plasma bubbles observed over Brazil. Using OI6300 airglow images and ionograms, it was possible to detect semimonthly oscillations in the start times of equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) and equatorial Spread-F. This semimonthly oscillation is likely related to the lunar tide, which represents an important mechanism acting in the day-to-day variability of EPBs.