Abnormal Waves Observation and Analysis of the Mechanism in the Pearl River Estuary, South China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Apart from some minor errors in the manuscript, there are some major problems which make this submission inadequate. For example, the wave gauge mounted about 2 m below the water surface. What does this mean? Did authors filter out the tidal results? Does this water surface refer to high tide or low tide level?

Besides, measured results are also not so realistic. For example, the observations in Figure 4 are 3 horizontal lines. The mean wave heights (Figure 5) are so small for the entire year. If the numbers are correct, does the instrument sensitive enough to capture these numbers? The wave gauge is about 2 m below the water surface, and the wave height of few centimeters would only produce 0.05% signal strength of that the water depth produces. Also, the authors concluded that the results were caused by large ships passing by. How do authors know? How is the result concluded? The wave heights caused by ships passing by will decay by distance? Where was the wave gauge mounted? How far is the wave gauge from the waterway? These results may be also caused by river current, and there is no discussion in the manuscript. 

Finally, the theory is somehow not correct. For example, the coefficient of Eq. (4) is for the open sea environment, and it may change depending on local effects. Yet, all the discussions are based on the assumption. This is also not correct.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Please find the review comments in the attached PDF.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The topic is interesting. It can however be further improved by addressing the following major issues:

·       The title of the paper is " Observation of abnormal waves from a wave gauge in the Pearl River Estuary, South China". It is difficult to know the novities of the paper from the title. Please modify the title.

·       The contributions of the paper should also be clearly and briefly mentioned in the introduction section also, identifying the gaps in the existing literature. It is unclear how the proposed method will improve the state of the art: what gap is filled?

·        The definition of abnormal waves should be further clarified in the paper. This is because the scope of ‘abnormal’ is extremely broad, as mentioned in the suggested papers.

·       The method is poorly structured in its explanation.

·       The potential applications of the proposed method should be further clarified in the paper.

 

·       The data collection will affect the results. So, uncertainties of data should be discussed.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript has been significantly developed according to the comments. I suggest this paper can be considered to be published.