Analyzing Variations in the Association of Eurasian Winter–Spring Snow Water Equivalent and Autumn Arctic Sea Ice

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The reviewer is really very grateful to the authors for such a really very outstanding research and article on such a vital nowadays topic of association of Arctic sea ice shrinking and its influence on Eurasian snow cover spring water equivalent. This may uncover the influence of the recent year’s climatic changes on the Earth climatic and weather system and explain becoming more often now weather disasters and anomalies. The minor inconveniences are that there is no upper case typing in the line 44 and 45 for example for 10^6 and km^2. But the reviewer is really very grateful to the authors for such a really very outstanding research and article anyway.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments. We have revised and improved as suggested.

Yours sincerely,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments to the Editors.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments. We have revised and improved as suggested.

Yours sincerely,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an interesting study intended to understand and predict the link between the spatial distribution characteristics of Eurasian snow water equivalent (SWE) and its relationship with Arctic sea ice.

The methodology is well described and uses the most recent digital techniques. The conclusion is exhaustive and the bibliographical references up to date.

I only have very few comments and suggestions aimed at improving the readability of the article.

Line 193 what A and B are?

Line 299 The first mode of the Eurasian SWE in spring is a north-south dipole structure. Unless I'm wrong, this mode is very close to the first mode of the Eurasian SWE in winter (figures 2a and 6a are similar) but it is not similar to the EOF2 of Eurasian SWE in winter as you claim.

Figure 6d, PCs of the second mode of the average spring SWE in Eurasia, not winter.

Line 358 You say that the distribution structure of this SWE is similar to the second mode of Eurasian SWE in winter (Figure 3a). It is similar to the first mode (Figure 2a).

What differentiates Figures 9c and Figure 10? Both figures represent the abnormal water vapor flux when the BKS sea ice is at a low value.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments. We have revised and improved as suggested.

Yours sincerely,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Review of “Analyzing the variation of winter-spring snow water equivalent in Eurasia associated with autumn Arctic sea ice” by Feng et al.

 

This work aimed to explore the effecting of autumn Arctic sea ice on the variation of winter-spring snow water equivalent (SWE) over Eurasian continent during the past decades. Results showed strong correlations of the first two modes of winter-spring SWE over Eurasia with autumn Barents-Kara sea ice. These results have been also well revealed by the early studies and I have not found any new insights from this work. Furthermore, there are too many mistakes can be found in the expression and grammar. I cannot recommend it to be accepted until the authors finish these major corrections.

1. Line 33: please rewrite this sentence
2. Line 44-45: There are only 7 years from 2009 to 2015, how to calculate these changes every ten years? 106 is 10^(6)?
3. Line 50: “.” Is missing after [12-13]
4. Line 59: “produced” should be “experienced”
5. Line 62: “The change of snow …… temperature.” Some references should be added.
6. Line 63: “fall” should be “decrease”
7. Introduction: I’m not feel good about the writing of the introduction after my carefully reading. I feel there is no logical about the structure organization and there are just the combination of the related references. I strongly suggest the authors re-organize it and improve the readability to the readers.
8. Line 141: the second “Rxz” should be “Rxy”
9. Line 155-156: I have not following this sentence.
10. Line 158-159: “×36” is suggested to be deleted.
11. Line 165: “.” is also missing after kg?−1?−1.
12. Section 2.2.3: Which is the upper level when you calculate the intergrated water vapor flux? It should be clear.
13. Line 169: “test” should be “test the significance of”
14. Line 183: “Prediction methods” may be better than “Regression”
15. Line 196: delete “variation”
16. In this work, the research region is limited to the north of 40N. However, the region of Tibetan Plateau is also another high center of snow cover. Why it is not considered here?
17. Line 209: “.” is missing again after “1983 to 2018”
18. I wonder whether the linear trend has been deleted before the EOF analysis implemented on the SWE. From Figure 2 and 3, I think the answer is not. How about the distribution if the trend deleted?
19. Line 389-391: This sentence needs to re-organize.
20. Line 452: delete one “from the North Atlantic”
21. For the winter SWE, AO is a key factor bridging the influence of sea ice on SWE. But as we all know, there is a short memory for the atmosphere. How the signal of autumn Arctic sea ice can persistent into the winter? Due to its self-memory of sea ice or other process? More discussions are needed.
22. Authors indicated that the influence of BKS sea ice on the spring SWE is not significant. However, authors also showed the winter BKS sea ice presented significant correlation with spring SWE over Eurasia, as shown in Figure 6. How to explain this discrepancy? Another question is similar with Q20, how the signal of BKS sea ice persistent into the spring?
23. Figure 11: This figure shows the forecast result from 1983 to 2018. I want to know whether all the results are the forecasted data, or the result from 1983 to 1999 is the training data and 2000-2018 is the forecast. This should be clear.
24. I stop to produce question here. I believe there are still many mistakes existing in the current version. I strongly suggest the authors to check it carefully and correct them. Honestly, if it is not the paper for the special issue, I think I will reject it for the current manuscript.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments. We have revised and improved as suggested.

Yours sincerely,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

No further question

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We have revised and improved as suggested.

Yours sincerely,

Yuanzhi Zhang

On behalf of all co-authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf