Citizen Science and The University of Queensland Seismograph Stations (UQSS)—A Study of Seismic T Waves in S-W Pacific Ocean
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The content of the paper relating to citizen science and seismic readings is relevant and substantive. However, the content related to climate change, global warming, and the decimation of Earth should all be removed. This research stands on its own. There is no reason to tie it to climate change or global catastrophes and it comes across as forced and biased. Specific editorial comments are provided below:
Abstract
Define CSIRO, STEM, BRS, etc.
"This is a topical citizen disaster preparedness action area for today’s climate emergency, which is threatening the globe and all lifeforms.” This research does not need to be posed as dealing with a climate emergency. In terms of disaster preparedness, there is a difference between citizens recording simple measurements and initiating a disaster preparedness plan. I do not see why this research needs to be extrapolated to any existential crisis. Why not simply pose this as a successful citizen science project rather than a response to a climate emergency or to prepare for a catastrophe? Highly recommend removing references to climate change and catastrophes throughout.
Introduction
Define all abbreviations on first use (CSIRO, UNESCO, etc.) even if they are commonplace.
“Would climate change effects in the oceans change the transmission velocity of earthquake T waves? If so, how could T waves, be used to measure climate change?” This may be a climate-change related question, but the research described here does not address this issue and it seems forced. If the authors would like to address this issue, it should be phrased more specifically, such as, "Would temperature and salinity changes in the ocean..." Then you can add one or two statements that climate change may affect those variables, but 'climate change' should not be the pretext of the study, and I'd recommend removing these questions as well. It seems like these questions were not directly addressed in results, except in section 4.3, which is one small paragraph; the lack of follow-up supports that this should not be the premise of the work. Or, for example, follow up by including a specific section, such as, "Temperature and salinity effects on T-wave propagation" and then if you want, you can briefly mention climate change here as a possible influencer of T/S.
Omit this and all similar statements: “The collective activities of human beings have so altered the earth’s ecosystems that our very survival seems in danger because reparation strategies become more difficult to reverse every day.”
Remove pretense of disaster: “To contain global warming before it reaches catastrophic levels means addressing environmental, social, and economic issues in a holistic way. [2].”
Omit: "More recently, the reverse is happening within universities. With post-Covid downsizing of universities and the casualisation of academic staff contributing to a knowledge malaise in the earth science and environmental teaching and research sector, there is now a paucity of extension projects to manage citizen science. This is indicative of systems not recovering from a major threat to their routines."
Focus on the citizen science, the measurements, and the emergent research questions as the main outcome. Omit all references to climate change. This discovery stands on its own scientific merit. This research does not need to be framed within climate change or some catastrophe to be relevant.
Materials and Methods
Reformat bullets in 2.2 – If using full sentences, then capitalize first word and periods for punctuation. If using statements, then no capitalization or periods are needed, but do one or the other. Currently, they are uncapitalized sentences. Remove extra space in beginning of second bullet.
Reformat section 2.4. This seems like an effort for concision but the format of having sentence fragments and subsequent responses is inconsistent with the overall paper format and confusing for an outside reader.
Section 3.1 – bullets are good but don’t need to be italics. Check spacing on last bullet.
Table 2 – Define MS and MB in caption.
Section 3.1 – “…to conjecture that” – Rephrase the questions, e.g.: “There may be a seasonality effect…” and “There may be a salinity effect…”
Section 4.1: “Contemporary recent discussion with a prospective higher degree student…” – It is nice to provide this context but it is not suitable for a journal article. A “prospective higher degree student” is not considered a viable reference. Simply omit this part of the statement and rely on the ISC database as the source.
Remove this and all similar commentary from the paper: “Of course, all types of animal life will be affected by such a catastrophe, especially krill which whales feed upon.”
Conclusions
Entire conclusion should be rewritten to reflect the substance of the research and to remove all political commentary, opinions, and bias.
Omit first three paragraphs.
Omit: “We have already observed…”
“However, these big corporate focused university institutions do have sustainability programs endorsed by management.” – these are opinionated statements that need to be removed. Reserve for commentaries and opinion articles, not for a scientific journal article.
No – the following statements are not rigorous, intellectually biased, and presumptive of other people’s abilities: “…but for the education and preparedness of citizens who are unable to grasp what climate emergency impacts will befall them. Misinformation abounds.”
Quality of English language is fine
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have focused on a very important subject, one that needs to be heard without errors or mistakes (otherwise it will dilute the impact of this critical message).
I had a lot of trouble with the references:
Ref [4] doesn't mention ShakeAlert: https://find.anu.edu.au/search?q=%22shake%20alert%22
and I couldn't find any mention of @LastQuake in any of the references.
Citation for the following statement?
"Australia, which leads the world in citizen initiated solar panel installation on their rooftops."
Lines 87-89 have a quotation, but no citation for it (this occurs often in the manuscript):
“University was happy to participate in the scheme to arouse the students' scientific research skills and foster the inquisitive excitement necessary for the potential scientists of tomorrow.”
This line seems very opinionated, and out of place for a scientific paper:
"The Australian public service is suffering a similar knowledge deficit after 10 years of neo-liberalising contracting out of their 412 raison d’etre."
Grammatical error in line 76:
"Raspberry Shake is globally growing commercial program appealing to amateur"
Large gap on line 43:
"(ESD)? This is UNESCO’s education sector’s response to the urgent and dramatic chal-43"
Extra space at start of line 156:
" provide station name, date/time ON-OFF; sensor direction; clocking error."
and line 318:
"Brisbane ( BRS). The blur of purple dots shows the prolific earthquake activity in the SW Pacific subduction"
Line 196 ends in a bullet for some reason:
"km/sec to 2.65 km/sec, in different parts of the Atlantic (5,577 to 8,695 ft/sec.), in contrast to •"
Line 311 has less spaces at the start than the bullets above it:
• There does appear to be a seasonality in T wave reception by BRS 309
• There is a paucity of T waves passing across the submerged Zealandia continent
• T wave paths also plot clear paths for tsunami hazard along east coast of Australia [27 ]
Citation 28 on Line 377 has 2 different brackets:
"tion and comparison with other volcanic glasses [28}"
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The comments are as follows:
1. Try not to use citation in the Abstract.
2. What are the changed research questions?
3. What is CSIRO?
4. Revise Abstract to make it more interesting for the first-time readers.
5. Line 43- Why there is a question mark after ESD???
6. Line 54-75- Any other examples from any other countries?
7. What is the aim of this study? any research objectives?
8. Why "We" in the conclusion section? The study found out or the findings depicted would be better.
Good Luck
The manuscript requires English and formatting proof-read.
Author Response
please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I’m excited by the methods and results of this project, its implications to measuring ocean conditions, and its impact on citizen science, a field whose relevance is being scrutinized now that it’s been around awhile, but this is one application that’s very valuable. This scientific study is sound and relevant.
However, there is still an issue of messaging, which is reflected in this review. I think the authors should revisit how Methods and Results were written and consider that mindset and the following critique during revisions.
The following is amazing! – “The original research question has now been amplified with a brief literature review. We observe that currently in Australia, university and government earth science observatories have diminished, and in their place, public seismic networks (PSN) have evolved, either in backyard sheds or school science labs. We now additionally propose here that the level of expertise required ideally fits the role of advancing citizen science, for a real science advantage. This is already a topical citizen disaster preparedness action area…”
Then it changes scope and suddenly becomes an existential crisis. This is what I think the paper should avoid; not a reference to climate change (that’s fine), but in subjective language like this:
“and we propose that it has application for today’s climate emergency, which is threatening the globe and all lifeforms.”
Not only is this language subjective (any of it can be critiqued ad infinitum), but the statement equates to, “our application is going to help save the world and all lifeforms,” by reasoning of, if A=B and B=C, then A=C. I am not being facetious; this is simply grammar. There are other examples of this rather loose language throughout that I’d suggest the author NOT try to fix or reword, but simply omit because it actually detracts from the amazing relevance of the project itself. I believe this would weaken the paper in no way and strengthen it in several. Additional examples are provided below but not exhaustive. The following are examples but these and similar pieces should be revised throughout.
The author uses metaphors and colloquialisms throughout (e.g., “a lot of headaches; findings were tantalizing; resurrected the data”) and I would leave it to the Journal editors to decide on the extent those should be used, however I believe they are mostly okay (except possibly for international audiences).
Provide some references for “1950’s-60’s legacy literature” since literature is explicitly mentioned.
The framing around climate change is better, but not precise enough. Please consider the following revisions:
Current:
This review now proposes the multidisciplinary research question of- Would climate change effects in the oceans change the transmission velocity of earthquake T waves? If so, how then could T waves be used to measure climate change?
Revised:
This review now proposes the multidisciplinary research question: Would changes in ocean temperature and salinity change the transmission velocity of earthquake T waves? If so, how could T waves be used to measure possible changes in the ocean due to climate change?
Dissecting this paragraph:
This paper also exemplifies the application of education for sustainable development (ESD). This is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) education sector’s response to the urgent and dramatic challenges that the planet faces. The collective activities of human beings have so altered the earth’s ecosystems that our very survival seems in danger because reparation strategies become more difficult to reverse every day. To contain global warming before it reaches catastrophic levels means addressing environmental, social, and economic issues in a holistic way. [2].
Please reframe this from a more explanatory standpoint of what ESD is and why this paper conforms to that. For example,
This paper also supports the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) system proposed by UNESCO’s education sector to help address… ESD is a system by which… This project, by virtue of its…is therefore supporting ESD.
This is more precise and informative. The prior language should be reserved for venues other than published scientific journal articles. The paper loses nothing by dropping the language, and in my opinion, becomes stronger in omitting it by highlighting the major scientific advances that the research does provide, namely: 1) its potential ability to measure ocean changes (I mean, this is a profound scientific discovery); and 2) the replacement of conventional seismic networks with citizen science (this is HUGE! Cit sci is having a hard time right now demonstrating its relevance – now that it’s been around a while, people are asking if it’s worth it and the results are not always obvious. This is one application where the utility and value are amazing and highly worth it – that alone vaults this paper into a high relevance.) This second one then feeds into the Disaster Preparedness context, which is fine as presented -- this direct application could actually be expounded.
Continuing: Please consider omitting the following and similar statements throughout:
“… to the urgent and dramatic challenges that the planet faces. The collective activities of human beings have so altered the earth’s ecosystems that our very survival seems in danger because reparation strategies become more difficult to reverse every day. To contain global warming before it reaches catastrophic levels means addressing environmental, social, and economic issues in a holistic way. [2].”
The following is another example of expressing opinions. This is not the venue for these statements:
“More recently, the reverse is happening within universities. With post-Covid downsizing of universities and the casualisation of academic staff contributing to a knowledge malaise in the earth science and environmental teaching and research sector, there is now a paucity of extension projects to manage citizen science. This could be indicative of systems not recovering from a major disruptive threat (Covid pandemic) to their routines.”
Section 2.4 is abnormal and unhelpful in its format. Revise to a standard format. A question-and-answer type of format is fine, but these sentence fragments and single-quote responses don’t convey a coherent message.
Please apply the same recommendations above to Conclusions.
For example, in Conclusions, the following paragraph is opinion because most terms are subjective (urgency; our situation; academic segue; mobilization of a groundswell; climate change emergency; stoic mindset of persistence; bear impacts; about to befall the planet). These are not objective or precise. I appreciate the author’s vigor and intentions, but as written and presented, these are not rigorous enough for publication and should be simply removed. It would weaken the paper in no way, and strengthen it in several ways. That’s all I’m asking the author to try to recognize. I otherwise love their study and its results.
“We also recognise the urgency of our situation. We are not talking about the implementation of an academic segue into science; we are talking about the mobilisation of a groundswell to gain both citizen comprehension and understanding of the climate change emergency and also about developing a stoic mindset of persistence, to bear some of the impacts about to befall the planet.”
Conclusions need to drastically re-focus on this project and its potential implications.
Author Response
please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Much better, thank you.
Author Response
please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for your patience and diligence in working through this. I find the paper tremendously strong now. The context is well established and the merits of the project speak to these bigger questions of ocean change as an indicator of climate. Best wishes moving forward!
