The Effect of Water Vapor Originating from Land on the 2018 Drought Development in Europe
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The major comments are as follows:
- The SMC and NDVI were selected to indicate drought characteristics, and further to group regions. Why the authors chose these two？I am not sure to what extent the indicators are valid. For example, the SMC data used in this study only represents the top surface dryness of the soil. Do the commonly used indices, such as PDSI, SPEI, show similar drought patterns? Add relevant literature to prove that the drought characteristics in the article are credible is necessary. if the author can supplement the monitoring results of other indices, it would be better.
- The conclusions are obtained based on a new dataset” the fate of land evaporation dataset”. This manuscript can be regarded as a specific application of the dataset. Therefore, the reliability of the conclusions completely depends on the accuracy of the dataset. The author should emphasize the applicability of the dataset in the article.
The specific comments are as follows:
1, Line 131-133: Why the threshold is 33.4? Please provide more detail.
2, Line 147: How reliable is this dataset? Is it cited by other studies?
3, Line 152: What does “downscaled” mean here? Resampled to high resolution? Please give more details about the dataset processing.
4, Figure5, Figure6: Figure 5 seems to be the same with some in Figure 6.
5, Part 4 conclusions: The conclusion part is too long, it needs to be simplified.
5, Line 384: Please check the double”that it”.
6, Line 89: Please add the “discussion” part.
7, Could the reduce of water vapor anomalies originating from land be the cause of the drought? Not just amplifying or dampening?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors examined the water vapor condition of the drought. They also mentioned warm temperature, but that means the surface air temperature. Actually, warm air temperature of the free atmosphere can help lower the relative humidity, and then contribute to the drought. Suggest the authors have an analysis from this perspective.
In the title, it is better to link drought to the "lack" of water vapor.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
It is a good paper that analyzes the characteristics of drought by applying the effects of water vapor on land to atmosphere based on the analysis of soil moisture and NDVI. Not only is the focus good for drought analysis, but also the overall composition of the paper is very good.
However, additional modifications are required on several points.
The contents (mainly numbers) of the raw materials used in the analysis were not disclosed. It would be helpful for non-European readers to understand if the characteristics of monthly rainfall for the target area were presented.
There is a need to add a description of the six regional criteria. It should be presented based on any hydrological homogeneity or topographical homogeneity.
The quality of the data used in the analysis is a very important resource for research analysis. Adequacy of the Water Accounting Model 2-layers (WAM-2layers) used in the calculation of water vapor must be presented. This requires a brief description of the applied model, parameters of the model used in , and the test and calibration process.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The major comments are as follows:
- The SMC and NDVI were selected to indicate drought characteristics, and further to group regions. Why the authors chose these two？I am not sure to what extent the indicators are valid. For example, the SMC data used in this study only represents the top surface dryness of the soil. Do the commonly used indices, such as PDSI, SPEI, show similar drought patterns? Add relevant literature to prove that the drought characteristics in the article are credible is necessary. if the author can supplement the monitoring results of other indices, it would be better.
- The conclusions are obtained based on a new dataset” the fate of land evaporation dataset”. This manuscript can be regarded as a specific application of the dataset. Therefore, the reliability of the conclusions completely depends on the accuracy of the dataset. The author should emphasize the applicability of the dataset in the article.
The specific comments are as follows:
1, Line 131-133: Why the threshold is 33.4? Please provide more detail.
2, Line 147: How reliable is this dataset? Is it cited by other studies?
3, Line 152: What does “downscaled” mean here? Resampled to high resolution? Please give more details about the dataset processing.
4, Figure5, Figure6: Figure 5 seems to be the same with some in Figure 6.
5, Part 4 conclusions: The conclusion part is too long, it needs to be simplified.
5, Line 384: Please check the double”that it”.
6, Line 89: Please add the “discussion” part.
7, Could the reduce of water vapor anomalies originating from land be the cause of the drought? Not just amplifying or dampening?
Author Response
Perhaps there has been a mistake, but we could not find any new comments compared to round 1. For completeness, we repeat our reply here. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
