Simulating Dynamics and Ecology of the Sea Ice of the White Sea by the Coupled Ice–Ocean Numerical Model
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
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Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
A symbol list is mandatory to reach the Journal Quality Standards. The Abbreviations list does not include ...
REPLY: We agree and have added all abbreviations to their section.
The last sentence in the conclusions is too pretentious and meaningless.
REPLY: We agree and has removed the sentence. It was written by one of the co-authors, who is fighting for winter data collecting and wished to share his believes.
The article shows an interesting research topic, but the core results (Figures 3 to 8) could still be much better explained. The authors have made an important effort to improve that part, but still is should be detailed. Better description on the text for the results on figures 3 to 8
REPLY: We did our best to improve and enlarge the discussion of the figures, even added two lines to Fig. 6 to show that nutrients are limiting (untypical situation for the Arctic sea-ice ecologial systems).
The mathematical treatment or methodology is also be improved.
REPLY: The subsection for the coupling was written: coupling is among the novelties, because no other online-coupled models of sea-ice exist in general, to say nothing about the White Sea. Data analysis was quite simple, using well-known methods and open-source tools. We added a note on that also.
1) The name of part 2 is Methods. Is this correct or could it be better fitted to the actual content of that part 2
REPLY: We agree, and named the section such only because the Instructions were quite insistent. Supported by the reviewer's advice, we gladly change the title to 'The model'
2) Many parts of the text (abstract included) have sentences as “We ...” or also “Our…”. The non-personal style should be in the whole text. “Two simulations were performed: “ (as an example) instead of “We performed two simulations”. A thorough review of the text should be performed, changing that.
REPLY: We followed the advice of the reviewer and rewrote the text in the passive voice.
3) Feet of the figures should be shortened, and text added to explain what is plotted on Figures 5 to 8 On figure 4, a legend could be inserted, to differentiate the two lines and then, also shorten the foot.
REPLY: We agree and put all information to the caption just following the rules that insist on self-description of all figures. However, we reduced the detailed description and moved it to the text, as the reviewer had suggested.
4) Figure 2 is too big. Probably, it could even be removed without loss of coherence.
REPLY: We agree and decided to make it smaller. People from the hot parts of the world might be curious how ice studied in the paper looks like.
A final full text review is always a good idea and the text (as is) does not look like to have undergone that trying to make it
REPLY: We agree that this is a good idea and usually try to do that. However, when deadlines press too hard, one-more-reading does little good. We have carefully reviewed the text following the advice, leaving several days for this purpose.
Reviewer 2 Report
Before the publication, the authors should clarify the following remarks:
- The coupling model is not defined. Please clarify the mathematics and numerics behind the coupling model, which is emphasised as novelty compared to other JASMINE publications.
- This reviewer realizes that the JASMINE model has already been published. Moreover, the authors somewhat denote term "validation" and "validated", but never give discussion and reasoning how are these results validated.
- How does the refining of grid influence results. Vertical and horizontal discretisation arragement vs. numerical results should be commented.
- The same holds for reasoning of the time step, which is commented as "small". Time dependency study should have also been done!
- The conclusion section is the same as of similar papers. This reviewer questions whether there is any novelty in the manuscript. Please clearly state novelties and conclude why are they validated, remove the repeated model conclusions that are camouflaged as novelties.
- The manuscript should not be written in active form, but instead in passive form (e.g. "we plan to" -> "it is planned to")
Author Response
Before the publication, the authors should clarify the following remarks:
- The coupling model is not defined. Please clarify the mathematics and numerics behind the coupling model, which is emphasised as novelty compared to other JASMINE publications.
REPLY: We agree and have added a subsection to explain coupling in detail
- This reviewer realizes that the JASMINE model has already been published. Moreover, the authors somewhat denote term "validation" and "validated", but never give discussion and reasoning how are these results validated.
REPLY: Indeed, we have already published the JASMINE model and showed that it simulates physical and ecological quantities in a reasonable way. In this paper, we tried to focus on sea ice, both physical and ecological quantities. We used the available data (unfortunately, not much is available) to show that the model gives reasonable results. This is what we call validation. We rewrote some sentences to avoid this word, replacing it with 'testing' and 'improving'.
- How does the refining of grid influence results. Vertical and horizontal discretisation arragement vs. numerical results should be commented.
REPLY: changing the model resolution is not just changing a parameter: bathymetry data needs to be re-interpolated, and then checked that it suits the numerical restrictions not reported within the paper; boundary conditions change, starting from the river estuaries that have different area (it is one grid node); even parameters of the numerical model might depend on the step, e.g., numerical viscosity. This can be an interesting study, but we believe that it is worth a separate manuscript.
- The same holds for reasoning of the time step, which is commented as "small". Time dependency study should have also been done!
REPLY: we decided to remove the adjective 'small' because it is, of course, relative. We added a description on the choice of the time step. This step is the largest possible, so that the model does not blow up due to numerical instability. The Courant condition together with high tidal current speed (up to 2 m/s, can be even more) is a serious obstacle. Taking into account that the sea is small, so that the spatial resolution is just 3_km (15 km in the Arctic is considered high resolution), the Courant condition is even more restrictive.
- The conclusion section is the same as of similar papers. This reviewer questions whether there is any novelty in the manuscript. Please clearly state novelties and conclude why are they validated, remove the repeated model conclusions that are camouflaged as novelties.
REPLY: We agree that the conclusion is typical, we were not happy to make it so, but as 'everybody' writes like that, we decided to follow the flow. However, we are grateful to the reviewer for the advice (and thus a permission) to write as we wished to. So, we rewrote the Conclusion.
- The manuscript should not be written in active form, but instead in passive form (e.g. "we plan to" -> "it is planned to")
REPLY: We followed the advice of the reviewer and rewrote the text in the passive voice.
Reviewer 3 Report
This manuscript presents a new model of White Sea which consists of several coupled submodels and can simulate sea-ice phenomena in the White Sea, including biochemical phenomena in sea ice. This time authors focus on the dynamics of sea ice and its ecosystem. They describe the model and compare its results to any available sea-ice data, mostly satellite data. Model resolves mesoscale and could be considered as eddy-permitting with spatial resolution of 3 km.
The weakness of this article is that it does not have a clearly defined research goal. The creation and development of a model is the development of a tool with which you can solve various research problems. This article, as I understand it, does not set such tasks, and proceeds from just a declaration of the capabilities of the proposed model. And this is a definite minus. If this is not the case, then the wording of the objectives of study should be changed and the logic of the whole article should be rebuilt in this vein. On the contrary, if the main goal is still the presentation of the model, it is necessary to give as detailed a description as possible without referring to previous works if their goal was not this. And if even the goals were the same, then what is the point of the very article?
Some in-line comments
L61: Ice Centre ïƒ Ice Data Center , NOAA NESDIS centre ïƒ NOAA NESDIS center
“Centre” for European Institutes and “Center” for American ones.
L61-62: “also provides this resolution” ïƒ “also provides their data with this resolution”.
L115-116: Paper “presents a model of the White Sea dynamics (both water and ice) and marine biogeochemistry …” – the same was in [22]. Would you please discuss what is new in this paper, what progress is made compared with your previous publications?
L237-244: repeat L229-236
L2-3, L79-80, L116-117, L133-134, L371-372 – too many times about “the only comprehensive numerical model”
It is not clear yet, whether JASMINE is the very presented as “the only comprehensive numerical model”, would you please give explanation of what JASMINE stands for.
Author Response
The weakness of this article is that it does not have a clearly defined research goal. The creation and development of a model is the development of a tool with which you can solve various research problems. This article, as I understand it, does not set such tasks, and proceeds from just a declaration of the capabilities of the proposed model. And this is a definite minus. If this is not the case, then the wording of the objectives of study should be changed and the logic of the whole article should be rebuilt in this vein. On the contrary, if the main goal is still the presentation of the model, it is necessary to give as detailed a description as possible without referring to previous works if their goal was not this. And if even the goals were the same, then what is the point of the very article?
REPLY: The goal was to improve the model. The main improvement was adding a sea-ice ecology by coupling the model with the appropriate submodel. This allowed better description of the spring bloom. We showed that for the rest of the warm time of the year the effect is small: also a result. Also, we reduced the step, coming to higher resolution. One of the drawbacks noticed by reviewers of the paper in JMS in 2018, was low resolution. The model is already used as a tool for studying marine ecology.
We added clarifying phrases to the text.
Some in-line comments
L61: Ice Centre ïƒ Ice Data Center , NOAA NESDIS centre ïƒ NOAA NESDIS center
“Centre” for European Institutes and “Center” for American ones.
REPLY: we agree and have corrected.
L61-62: “also provides this resolution” ïƒ “also provides their data with this resolution”.
REPLY: we agree and have corrected.
L115-116: Paper “presents a model of the White Sea dynamics (both water and ice) and marine biogeochemistry …” – the same was in [22]. Would you please discuss what is new in this paper, what progress is made compared with your previous publications?
REPLY: We agree that this should be done. We added a phrase into the Introduction:
"The progress, compared to our paper [], is twofold: first, the spatial resolution of the model was increased (50x50$ grid points to 200x200, or 8km to 3km); second, the ecological processes in sea-ice were taken into account."
There were other changes, for example, the sea-ice ridging parameter was changed (and the change was supported by theory), which is also said about in the paper.
L237-244: repeat L229-236
REPLY: Sorry, corrected.
L2-3, L79-80, L116-117, L133-134, L371-372 – too many times about “the only comprehensive numerical model”
REPLY: Reduced to three, one in the abstract, one in the conclusion, one in the main text.
It is not clear yet, whether JASMINE is the very presented as “the only comprehensive numerical model”, would you please give explanation of what JASMINE stands for.
REPLY: It is; now clarified in the text. Jasmine is written lowercase now, not to confuse the reader: it is just a name. It stands for 'Just Another Sea Model by Iakovlev Nickolay Et al', but this is a unofficial 'easter egg' to show respect to our teacher prof. Iakovlev, and a piece of the "Perl culture". To compare, CICE is just "sea ice", which is a sort of good humour.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
There are many " ? " along the text, in citing references and many other parts. I wonder if this is a stepback in the article evolution.
Labels on graphs coordinate systems should be improved.
There still no list of symbols.
Author Response
We are grateful to the reviewer(s) for careful reading of the manuscript and useful advice on improving it.
"There are many '?' along the text, in citing references and many other parts. I wonder if this is a stepback in the article evolution."
REPLY: This is the TeXnical mistake, a typo in the bib-file by accident. Sorry for not noticing. This paper has been cited in the early versions of the manuscript: it is our previous paper.
"Labels on graphs coordinate systems should be improved."
REPLY: We agree, made them bigger and more readable
"There still no list of symbols."
REPLY: We added the list of symbols, as requested by the reviewer.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have replied to the reviewer's questions and improved their manuscript.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for his valuable help and the time spent on reviewing the manuscript.
