The Pulses of Soil CO2 Emission in Response to Rainfall Events in Central Siberia: Revisiting the Overall Frost-Free Season CO2 Flux
, Eugene A. Vaganov 1,2, Alexey V. Panov 1, Nataly N. Koshurnikova 2 and Anatoly S. Prokushkin 1,2,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The authors of the present study dealt with the aim to investigate the influence of precipitations on soil CO2 emissions in boreal forest. Although the topic addressed is meaningful, the whole manuscript needs to be rethought. The major drawback is the absence of replicates since the authors installed one chamber for the measurement of soil CO2 efflux.
Despite the measurements were carried out every 5 days throughout 3 years (during the warmer season), to record soil CO2 fluxes just by one chamber is fairly limited.
It is not clear if the installed chamber measured CO2 flowing from the mineral soil or from the forest floor. I guess that the considered forest had a thick forest floor. Hence, the CO2, temperature and moisture content must be measured both in forest floor and in the mineral soil.
Further, the authors kept separate the three years of experiment. In my opinion, the authors should somehow combine the data obtained by the three years to obtain more reliable results.
Figure 2: what is the meaning of DOY? you can repplace the abbreviation with the full name
Figure 3 is not self-explanatory. What is the meaning of blue line, red line, small circles, big circles and error bars of circles?
Figure 4: I suppose that the dashed line resulted from a regression analysis. Please report the R2 and P values of each line. Otherwise they do not make sense.
Figure 5: also this figure is not self explanatory. Within the caption you must report the full name of NSE and SWC. In addition, what do you mean for Type 1, type 2 and type 3?
The discussion section need to be rewritten. In my opinion, the data obtained from the three years must be elaborated all together to have more comprensive results and to have broader picture of phenomena behind the changes of soil CO2 fluxes. In addition the authors have to keep in mind that the measured CO2 included CO2 released by root activity and soil microbial community
Comments on the Quality of English Language
A minor English editing is required
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank you for your suggestions and comments.
In the attached document we answered to all of your comments.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The article highlights some important insights into CO2 flux in central Siberia. However, the article needs some extensive revision as follows:
1. Mention a line of statement on the need for the study at the beginning of the abstract.
2. Also mention the location where the study was conducted in the abstract.
3. Include some quantified data on the most relevant results in the abstract section.
4. L 41: Add the following recent reference for the statement: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169421
5. Mention details on the potential research gap in the introduction part. Also mention the need for the study and the novelty statement at the end of the introduction part.
6. Fig 1 represents the rainfall and temperature of which year ??
7. What was the soil organic C in g/kg in the experimental area?
8. Mention the procedure of data analysis in the methodology part. It is essential for the future readers of the paper.
9. The results part is well written with proper illustrations of graphs.
10. The discussion part is unnecessarily lengthy. The authors need to discuss this by referencing the data recorded in this study.
Good luck!
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank you for your suggestions and comments.
In the attached document we answered to all of your comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
General comment
Boreal forests exert a great important role in the global carbon balance. The manuscript described and discussed the CO2 emission pulses in response to rainfall events. It is interesting to obtain the effective information of CO2 emission dynamics in Siberia. The discussion and explanation sound well in comprehensive. A minor revision is needed before acceptance.
Specific comment
L82, The first word “In” should be deleted.
L129, data analysis and statistics should be isolated from the field measurements.
L190, Figure 3, the vertical axis should be separated into 3 or 4 for the 4 variables.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
The language is good in quality.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to thank you for your suggestions and comments.
In the attached document we answered to all of your comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The manuscript can be accepted
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for all of your suggestions and comments concerning to our study.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
I have critically evaluated the article again and found that the authors did not revise the article properly. Hence, the authors are suggested to follow the suggestions given by the reviewers. The data analysis procedure is not correctly mentioned. They have not provided sufficient references in many places of the article which was also mentioned earlier. Even the author did not revise the discussion part as per my suggestion.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
In the attached file you will find the answer to all of your comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
