Phenological Changes and Their Influencing Factors under the Joint Action of Water and Temperature in Northeast Asia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

interesting paper presenting an issue that can gain some interest among scholars

there are some general flaws, but apart from that the study is well designed and the paper is rather good, however it is imho too filled up with figures

* abbreviations - what is SOS, EOS etc. - explain ALL abbreviations once they appear in the text, in the same way you did with NDVI and others

* L87-90 too many northeasts - it's difficult to follow, make it simpler

* chapter 2.3.1 - why havent you used kendall test for trend siginificance?

* L156 when significance is 95% then p is rather 0.95 not 0.5, you meant here: confidence 95% and p-value (significance level) equal 0.05

* L207 onwards  110-130 d - not "d" but "doy" - days of the year, it's sth different from just a day, as it indicates time with the reference to january 1st

* figure 3 - it is unclear, wouldnt it be better to leave only significant parts coloured, if sth is not significant it went white and black dots werent necessary

* units (d/a, d/y day years-1) - chose one and use it within whole manuscript

* chapter 3.3.1 - definitions, methods and so on should be in chapter for methods, here only results should be presented

figures - there are too many of them, its overwhelming (and I do not count here supplementary material)

Author Response

Thank you for providing these constructive suggestions. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

"Phenological changes and their influencing factors under the joint action of water and temperature in northeast Asia" This manuscript explores (NDVI)3g datasets in estimating the phenological characteristics (e.g.، SOS and EOS) of vegetation types and assesses their relationship with relevant deriving factors. This manuscript is well written and the drawn conclusions are coherent with the obtained results. Phenological characteristics such as SOS, EOS, and GSL are important parameters in understanding ecosystem functions; therefore, I suggest publishing this work.

Comments and suggestions:

Abstract:

Line 21-22: " SOS advancement " I suggest indicating this advancement, possibly between brackets, as 'Julian days'. The same should be applied to the other phenological characteristics too, for example on Line 24, “EOS showed an advancement”.

Line 26: "early spring and early summer" same here; please see the comment on Line 25.

1. Introduction

 Line 30: I suggest starting with land surface phenology (LSP), it is more relevant in the context of this study and similar studied.

Line 52-77: I suggest adding a few sentences on the available Earth observation products for studying LSP phenology apart from the traditional methods.

2. Materials and methods

 Line 107: "Fig. 1." Please add a 'scale bar' to this figure.

Line 124: I suggest adding a short paragraph on these “characteristics of vegetation phenology”.

4. Discussion

- Discussion could benefit from a small section of the implications on extracted phenological characteristics (phenometrics). In addition, limitations of the applied approach by few sentences are suggested.

Author Response

Thank you for providing these constructive suggestions. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

In this manuscript, the author analyzed spatiotemporal changes in phenology and its response to climatic factors of five vegetation types using the GIMMS NDVI3g data. I have some questions and suggestions as follows:

Question 1: In the sections of abstract and introduction, SOS, EOS and GSL should give the full name.

Question 2: In introduction section, the IPCC and ST used the abbreviations and the author should give the full name.

Question 3: In line 56, Hou Jing et al. (2017) was cited in the manuscript, but I can’t find the author in the references.

Question 4: Please give the detailed explanations of every vegetation type in supplementary Figure 1.

Question 5: In line 249, I can’t find the value of the advancement rate of SOS of different vegetation type in supplementary Figure 2 like broad-leaved forest, 0.36 d/a, needle-leaf forest 0.03 d/a, mixed forest, 0.05 d/a, grassland, 0.13 d/a. Why?

Question 6: Line 255, Supplementary Fig. 5 should be Figure 3. Please correct. In Line 257, the advancement proportion of SOS was 42.1% in Figure 3a.

Question 7: Line 259, I can’t find the value of 5.6 % (1982-2014) in Figure 3a. please correct.

Question 8: Line 264, Figure 3a should be Supplementary Figure 3, which can be expressed as Figure S3. Please correct it. In the supplementary material and manuscript, Supplementary Figure should be expressed as Figure S3.

Question 9: Line 278, Why can’t I find the values of 37.1% and 15.1% in Figure 3b?

Question 10: Line 297, the value of 86.6% should be 86.8% in Figure S3 (Supplementary Figure 3a).

Question 11: Line 315-317, Supplementary Figure 5b, d, f should be Figure 5b, f, d. Please correct.

Question 12: Line 322, supplementary Figures 4 and 5a, g, m should represent the spatial distribution patterns from 1982-2014, 1982-1998, 1999-2014, respectively. Please correct them.

Question 13: In page 8-9, please add the analysis of the change trend of between pre-season solar radiation and SOS, EOS in three periods.

Question 14: In supplementary Figure 7, please note which pictures represent spring and which autumn phenology. What is the full name of Tair, Prec and SR, respectively. Please note them in the title part.

Question 15: Line 371, Figure 7 should be Supplementary Figure 8. Please correct.

Question 16: What do the three colors of red, green and blue indicate in Figure 7, respectively? Please note them in the picture.

Question 17: Line 502, Figure 2 should be modified as Supplementary Figure 2 (Figure S2).

Question 18: Line 523, Is there a problem with the reference to Figure 1? The result can’t be obtained from Figure 1.

Question 19: In conclusion section, Line 594-605 can be moved to discussion, which looks more like the content of the discussion than the conclusion.

The English expression has some errors in the manuscript. The quality of English language should be improved.

Author Response

Thank you for providing these constructive suggestions. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is sufficiently improved. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our manuscript and for providing valuable feedback on its improvements. We are delighted to hear that you find the manuscript to be sufficiently improved. Your acknowledgment and encouragement mean a lot to us, serving as motivation for further efforts in our research. We will continue to strive to ensure the quality and accuracy of the content in the paper.

Once again, we sincerely appreciate your invaluable suggestions and time, and we look forward to your continued valuable feedback in the future.

Warm regards,

Author Team