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Peer review report 1 On “Impact of climate change on wheat flowering time in eastern Australia”
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 217 (2016) 1
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agrformet
Peer Review Report
Peer review report 1 On “Impact of climate change on wheat flowering time in eastern Australia”
1. Original Submission
2.2. Specific comments
1.1. Recommendation
1. Highlights 1. It should be “increasing mean temperature”, rather than “increased mean temperature”. 2. Highlights 4, these are projecting, not past tense. The number of hot days is projected to increase . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 3. First sentences of abstract, “it” indicates temperature based on sentence structure. Please revise or remove the first sentence. 4. The abstract is used to highlight the key results of the study; the projected climate change condition (temperature) is partial result. The key information of this study is the changes in flowering date of spring and winter wheat; the verbal description of the results are not sufficient; please summarize all solid and quantitative results in the abstract. 5. Line 109, the third objective is not solid one. I did not see any detailed analysis to support the possible adaption strategies for wheat. Just one sentence and some rough discussion (in the discussion section) as proposing for heat-tolerance varieties is not a science solution. 6. Line 132, with greenhouse gas emissions being consistent 7. Line 164, downscaled 8. Line 173, the time for wheat flowering 9. Lines 250-260. The changing trends should be reported as a mean plus/minus stand error, please check out the linear regression, for the slope you should also see the standard error. 10. Line 311, time to flower or time of flowering 11. Lien 489, responders? 12. The conclusion also should reemphasize the key findings in a solid manner. Please try to summarize the key point of projected changes in flowering date; I suggest to use some quantitative description for that.
Minor Revision 2. Comments to Author: Comments on “Impact of climate change on wheat flowering time in eastern Australia” by Wang et al. The authors analyzed the temperature from 19 GCMs, and combined the data with a vernalizing-photo thermal model to estimate the flowering dates and changes in terms of frost and hot days occurrence under two climate scenarios in a small agricultural region in Australia. The study concluded that spring wheat flowering dates occurred earlier across the study region; winter wheat flowering dates changed differently across regions. Then the authors suggested that the current wheat varieties ma not be suitable for true climate condition. The analysis is of significance to the local region and potentially useful to the global agricultural community. The experiment designs are reasonable, the results are relatively good except one key issue (see my below major comment). Writing is good given that the authors are non-native English speakers. I do have a few suggestions for authors to consider during revision. 2.1. Major comments The phonological model has been used to project the wheat flowering date in the 21st century, it is hard to evaluate the robustness of the model. In this case the historical comparison with some local field observational data will be very important. But the authors did not have this comparison; simply running the model with some numbers is not very solid. This should be addressed. The flowering date is primarily controlled by temperature, while the water availability also play a certain role. I did not find any description in the model for the water representation; I even did not find any discussion of the potential uncertainties the lack representation might bring.
DOI of published article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2015.04.028. 0168-1923/$ – see front matter http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.01.018
Xiaofeng Xu ∗ Assistant Professor, San Diego State University, Biology Department, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, California 92182, UNITED STATES ∗ Tel.:
+13345592437; fax: +19157475808.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agrformet
Peer Review Report
Peer review report 1 On “Impact of climate change on wheat flowering time in eastern Australia”
1. Original Submission
2.2. Specific comments
1.1. Recommendation
1. Highlights 1. It should be “increasing mean temperature”, rather than “increased mean temperature”. 2. Highlights 4, these are projecting, not past tense. The number of hot days is projected to increase . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 3. First sentences of abstract, “it” indicates temperature based on sentence structure. Please revise or remove the first sentence. 4. The abstract is used to highlight the key results of the study; the projected climate change condition (temperature) is partial result. The key information of this study is the changes in flowering date of spring and winter wheat; the verbal description of the results are not sufficient; please summarize all solid and quantitative results in the abstract. 5. Line 109, the third objective is not solid one. I did not see any detailed analysis to support the possible adaption strategies for wheat. Just one sentence and some rough discussion (in the discussion section) as proposing for heat-tolerance varieties is not a science solution. 6. Line 132, with greenhouse gas emissions being consistent 7. Line 164, downscaled 8. Line 173, the time for wheat flowering 9. Lines 250-260. The changing trends should be reported as a mean plus/minus stand error, please check out the linear regression, for the slope you should also see the standard error. 10. Line 311, time to flower or time of flowering 11. Lien 489, responders? 12. The conclusion also should reemphasize the key findings in a solid manner. Please try to summarize the key point of projected changes in flowering date; I suggest to use some quantitative description for that.
Minor Revision 2. Comments to Author: Comments on “Impact of climate change on wheat flowering time in eastern Australia” by Wang et al. The authors analyzed the temperature from 19 GCMs, and combined the data with a vernalizing-photo thermal model to estimate the flowering dates and changes in terms of frost and hot days occurrence under two climate scenarios in a small agricultural region in Australia. The study concluded that spring wheat flowering dates occurred earlier across the study region; winter wheat flowering dates changed differently across regions. Then the authors suggested that the current wheat varieties ma not be suitable for true climate condition. The analysis is of significance to the local region and potentially useful to the global agricultural community. The experiment designs are reasonable, the results are relatively good except one key issue (see my below major comment). Writing is good given that the authors are non-native English speakers. I do have a few suggestions for authors to consider during revision. 2.1. Major comments The phonological model has been used to project the wheat flowering date in the 21st century, it is hard to evaluate the robustness of the model. In this case the historical comparison with some local field observational data will be very important. But the authors did not have this comparison; simply running the model with some numbers is not very solid. This should be addressed. The flowering date is primarily controlled by temperature, while the water availability also play a certain role. I did not find any description in the model for the water representation; I even did not find any discussion of the potential uncertainties the lack representation might bring.
DOI of published article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2015.04.028. 0168-1923/$ – see front matter http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.01.018
Xiaofeng Xu ∗ Assistant Professor, San Diego State University, Biology Department, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, California 92182, UNITED STATES ∗ Tel.:
+13345592437; fax: +19157475808.