The importance of snowmelt spatiotemporal variability for isotope-based hydrograph separation in a high-elevation catchment

Schmieder, Jan; Hanzer, Florian; Marke, Thomas; Garvelmann, Jakob; Warscher, Michael; Kunstmann, Harald; Strasser, Ulrich

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-5015-2016

Articles | Volume 20, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-5015-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-5015-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 12

Research article

|

19 Dec 2016

Research article |

| 19 Dec 2016

The importance of snowmelt spatiotemporal variability for isotope-based hydrograph separation in a high-elevation catchment

Jan Schmieder, Florian Hanzer, Thomas Marke, Jakob Garvelmann, Michael Warscher, Harald Kunstmann, and Ulrich Strasser

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Final revised paper (published on 19 Dec 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 11 May 2016)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of the manuscript ‘The importance of spatio-temporal snowmelt variability for isotopic hydrograph separation in a high-elevation catchment’', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Jun 2016
- AC1: 'Authors reply to referee #1', Jan Schmieder, 04 Aug 2016
RC2: 'Review of submitted manuscript: The importance of spatio-temporal snowmelt variability for isotopic hydrograph separation in a high-elevation catchment by Schmieder et al.', Stefan Pohl, 30 Jun 2016
- AC2: 'Authors reply to referee #2', Jan Schmieder, 04 Aug 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (22 Aug 2016) by Ilja van Meerveld

AR by Jan Schmieder on behalf of the Authors (13 Sep 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (30 Sep 2016) by Ilja van Meerveld

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (28 Oct 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review of the manuscript ‘The importance of spatio-temporal snowmelt variability for isotopic hydrograph separation in a high-elevation catchment’

by J. Schmieder et al.

General comment
The revised version of this manuscript has been significantly improved compared to the original submission. All comments by the reviewers have been, in my opinion, satisfactorily addressed. I have only a few minor comments and corrections to recommend.

Minor comments and technical corrections
1, 1-2. Title: I understand the reasons why the authors don’t want to shorten it and I agree. However, I strongly suggest to change the title into something that sounds better, such as “The importance of snowmelt spatio-temporal variability for isotope-based hydrograph separation in a high-elevation catchment”

4, 9-10. I would change into something like “The events were defined as increase in discharge during warm days without precipitation and with clear sky”. I don’t understand the mention to the dry antecedent condition. Please, explain or remove.

6, 27. Perhaps “variability” is more suitable than “variation” (also in agreement with 8, 3).

6, 28. Replace “with” with “by”.

6, 28. “dependant” must be change into “dependent”.

8, 1. “reveal” is not appropriate here. Replace with “are characterized” or “show”.

10, 12. Here, in the rest of the manuscript and in the reference list the correct citation of Engel et al. (2015) is Engel et al. (2016). See below for the correct citation.

10, 29. “spatial” should be “spatially”.

11, 33. I suggest to remove “more elaborate”.

12, 13. I suggest to replace “stream flow” with “discharge” for consistency with the rest of the manuscript.

12, 13. “Smooths”: remove “s”.

14, 15. I think that the correct form is “not to conduct”.

15, 15. I suggest to change “leads” into “could lead”.

15, 16. I suggest to change “even higher” in “high”.

16, 7-11. I think that acknowledging the editor and the reviewer can be nice.

16, 30. Problems with the reference of Birkel et al. (2011)

17,2. Problems with the reference of Capell et al. (2012)

17, 20-22. Update as Engel M., Penna D., Bertoldi G., Dell’Agnese A., Soulsby C., Comiti F., 2016. Identifying runoff contributions during melt-induced runoff events in a glacierized Alpine catchment. Hydrological Processes, 30, 343-364. doi: 10.1002/hyp.10577.

18, 21. Problems with the reference of Laudon et al. (2004).

18, 36. Problems with the reference of Lundquist et al. (2005).

Fig. 4. I suggest to include a white background for the LMWL (as for the legend) and call it “Local Meteorological Water Line” with capital letters (to refer to the commonly used acronym).

Fig. 7. As in the other similar plots, indicate in the caption what the horizontal dashed lines mean.

Fig. 8. I suggest to increase the size of the labels close to the grey bands. They are barely visible.

Fig.9, Fig. 10, Fig. 11 and Fig. 12. I suggest to increase the size of the labels of the y-axis.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (further review by Editor) (13 Nov 2016) by Ilja van Meerveld

AR by Jan Schmieder on behalf of the Authors (15 Nov 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (26 Nov 2016) by Ilja van Meerveld

AR by Jan Schmieder on behalf of the Authors (30 Nov 2016) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

We present novel research on the spatiotemporal variability of snowmelt isotopic content in a high-elevation catchment with complex terrain to improve the isotope-based hydrograph separation method. A modelling approach was used to weight the plot-scale snowmelt isotopic content with melt rates for the north- and south-facing slope. The investigations showed that it is important to sample at least north- and south-facing slopes, because of distinct isotopic differences between both slopes.