Reply to Comment by Chang on “Anticyclonic Suppression of the North Pacific Transient Eddy Activity in Midwinter”

Chang (2024, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024gl110011) challenged the methodology proposed recently by Okajima et al. for evaluating cyclonic and anticyclonic contributions to Eulerian eddy statistics and atmospheric energetics based on the local flow curvature. He argued that using the local wind curvature to separate energetic contributions from cyclones and anticyclones is not physically meaningful. Here we argue that his claims are based on an unrealistic assumption of monopolar relative vorticity in an entire storm-track domain and a meridionally uniform zonal background flow atypical to midlatitudes. We also demonstrate that the error in attributing eddy statistics to cyclones and anticyclones is significantly smaller than his estimation. Rather, we further demonstrate that the curvature-based methodology effectively eliminates the shear influence to identify cyclonic and anticyclonic regions, which is dismissed in his argument. We conclude that the curvature-based methodology is beneficial in evaluating distinct cyclonic and anticyclonic contributions to atmospheric energetics in realistic conditions.