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Peer review report 2 on “Continuous but diverse advancement of spring-summer phenology in response to climate warming across the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau”
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 217 (2016) 305–306
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agrformet
Peer Review Report
Peer review report 2 on “Continuous but diverse advancement of spring-summer phenology in response to climate warming across the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau”
Original Submission
Minor comments
Recommendation
Line 26. “a sensitive bio-indicator of climate change” refers to “shifts in plant phenology” rather than to the QTP? Use concordant singular/plural case to avoid confusion. Line 37, advance in, instead of advance of Line 40-42. Don’t think it can be rule out the importance of other climate variables, as long as they were not verified. The relevance of mean annual temperature is high, but I don’t think it can be stated that is the major factor without a validation over several climate variables. Line 46. To define, or reduce, plant phenology to “the seasonal timing of plant growth” may be quite reductive, definition used indicates the timing and duration of phenological events. Line 47-48. Plant phenology is not “precisely” influenced by climate and environment change, there may be for instance intraspecific genetic factors which may modify how plant species phenology reacts to such changes. Line 82. “Study based on few scattered” Line 89. “a few groups of sites”, please reconsider writing (“at individual or groups of few sites”) Line 145. Is there a level of significance of the CI??? i.e.95% Line 151 mean temperature, average over 1980-2011 or annual basis?? Line 183-189. It is a bit counterintuitive, although possible depending on the aggregation method, that the mean advancement of spring-summer phenology of herbaceous plants over 1981-2011 is lower than those mean advancements found for 1981-1989 and 2000-2011 (Table 2a). Also interesting that the advancement trends of phenology are stronger for warmer (low elevation) areas (Table 2c), which could suggest that climate change impact on phenology is lower at higher elevation than lower elevation. I would be curious to know if warming trends were greater or lower at stations with spring-summer mean temperatures greater or lower than 10C. Line 197-203. The description presented should follow the caption of table 2. I have really hard time to discern distribution of the individual phenological events in fig 2a. Figure 2c: Woody species seem to have no sensitivity to climate trends (0.5 days for 1 degree of C increase over a decade), at least much lower than the sensitivity of herbaceous species. Don’t think that in lines 244-246 could be stated that “trends in phenology matched well with more rapid warming trends” for both woody
Minor Revision Comments to Author I found the paper a very useful and interesting scientific reference for observed trends of phenological advancement over the last 3 decades in the Quinghai-Tibetan Plateau. This is particularly relevant because previous studies mostly included only specific observations, or general trends detected by remote sensing analyses, and suggesting trends which were often diverging over period and species. Relationships between phenological and climate trends were also described in the paper, though I believe the latter analysis could have been articulated more in depth (e.g. integrating other climate variables like min temperatures or precipitation). It is not clear also if the relationship between phenology and climate could have diverging geographic north-South or EastWest gradients. In general, I believe that over such large areas like QTP the gradients of change in climate may not be univocal. Some of the graphs (especially in fig 2) are confusing mostly because the points are too scattered and class labels too many. I was also puzzled by the results presented in figure 2, where sensitivity of woody plants to seasonal temperature was almost null and sensibly higher for herbaceous, while in general throughout the paper woody plants results show strong sensitivity of woody plants to annual temperatures and less sensitivity for herbaceous. In my experience seasonal and annual temperature should be well correlated. In fact, I find results from Figure 2 a bit confusing, trends showing very low significance, and of little or no use in the main text. Would you rather move this figure in the SI? It is a bit counterintuitive that the mean advancement of springsummer phenology of herbaceous plants over 1981-2011 is lower than those mean advancements found for 1981-1989 and 20002011 (Table 2a), although possible depending on the aggregation method. Similarly, temperature trends (◦ C decade) in Table S4 were 0.96 for 1981-1999 and 0.85 for 2000-2011, but only 0.57 for the two periods together (1981-2011). Could be this verified or explained?
DOI of published article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.04.012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.11.120 0168-1923/
306
Peer Review Report / Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 217 (2016) 305–306
and herbaceous (and especially herbaceous) . . . anyway R2 of linear regression for woody is 0.00001. line 306, compare to Ma and Zhou work, your data show an advancement of 3.56 days per decade in spring phenology during 1980-2011 First revision Recommendation
Accept Comments to the author The revisions presented by the authors of the manuscript comply adequately with the minor issues I have previously raised. Antonio Trabucco via de nicola 25, sassari, Italy Available online 1 December 2016
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agrformet
Peer Review Report
Peer review report 2 on “Continuous but diverse advancement of spring-summer phenology in response to climate warming across the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau”
Original Submission
Minor comments
Recommendation
Line 26. “a sensitive bio-indicator of climate change” refers to “shifts in plant phenology” rather than to the QTP? Use concordant singular/plural case to avoid confusion. Line 37, advance in, instead of advance of Line 40-42. Don’t think it can be rule out the importance of other climate variables, as long as they were not verified. The relevance of mean annual temperature is high, but I don’t think it can be stated that is the major factor without a validation over several climate variables. Line 46. To define, or reduce, plant phenology to “the seasonal timing of plant growth” may be quite reductive, definition used indicates the timing and duration of phenological events. Line 47-48. Plant phenology is not “precisely” influenced by climate and environment change, there may be for instance intraspecific genetic factors which may modify how plant species phenology reacts to such changes. Line 82. “Study based on few scattered” Line 89. “a few groups of sites”, please reconsider writing (“at individual or groups of few sites”) Line 145. Is there a level of significance of the CI??? i.e.95% Line 151 mean temperature, average over 1980-2011 or annual basis?? Line 183-189. It is a bit counterintuitive, although possible depending on the aggregation method, that the mean advancement of spring-summer phenology of herbaceous plants over 1981-2011 is lower than those mean advancements found for 1981-1989 and 2000-2011 (Table 2a). Also interesting that the advancement trends of phenology are stronger for warmer (low elevation) areas (Table 2c), which could suggest that climate change impact on phenology is lower at higher elevation than lower elevation. I would be curious to know if warming trends were greater or lower at stations with spring-summer mean temperatures greater or lower than 10C. Line 197-203. The description presented should follow the caption of table 2. I have really hard time to discern distribution of the individual phenological events in fig 2a. Figure 2c: Woody species seem to have no sensitivity to climate trends (0.5 days for 1 degree of C increase over a decade), at least much lower than the sensitivity of herbaceous species. Don’t think that in lines 244-246 could be stated that “trends in phenology matched well with more rapid warming trends” for both woody
Minor Revision Comments to Author I found the paper a very useful and interesting scientific reference for observed trends of phenological advancement over the last 3 decades in the Quinghai-Tibetan Plateau. This is particularly relevant because previous studies mostly included only specific observations, or general trends detected by remote sensing analyses, and suggesting trends which were often diverging over period and species. Relationships between phenological and climate trends were also described in the paper, though I believe the latter analysis could have been articulated more in depth (e.g. integrating other climate variables like min temperatures or precipitation). It is not clear also if the relationship between phenology and climate could have diverging geographic north-South or EastWest gradients. In general, I believe that over such large areas like QTP the gradients of change in climate may not be univocal. Some of the graphs (especially in fig 2) are confusing mostly because the points are too scattered and class labels too many. I was also puzzled by the results presented in figure 2, where sensitivity of woody plants to seasonal temperature was almost null and sensibly higher for herbaceous, while in general throughout the paper woody plants results show strong sensitivity of woody plants to annual temperatures and less sensitivity for herbaceous. In my experience seasonal and annual temperature should be well correlated. In fact, I find results from Figure 2 a bit confusing, trends showing very low significance, and of little or no use in the main text. Would you rather move this figure in the SI? It is a bit counterintuitive that the mean advancement of springsummer phenology of herbaceous plants over 1981-2011 is lower than those mean advancements found for 1981-1989 and 20002011 (Table 2a), although possible depending on the aggregation method. Similarly, temperature trends (◦ C decade) in Table S4 were 0.96 for 1981-1999 and 0.85 for 2000-2011, but only 0.57 for the two periods together (1981-2011). Could be this verified or explained?
DOI of published article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.04.012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.11.120 0168-1923/
306
Peer Review Report / Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 217 (2016) 305–306
and herbaceous (and especially herbaceous) . . . anyway R2 of linear regression for woody is 0.00001. line 306, compare to Ma and Zhou work, your data show an advancement of 3.56 days per decade in spring phenology during 1980-2011 First revision Recommendation
Accept Comments to the author The revisions presented by the authors of the manuscript comply adequately with the minor issues I have previously raised. Antonio Trabucco via de nicola 25, sassari, Italy Available online 1 December 2016