Climate and basin drivers of seasonal river water temperature dynamics

Laizé, Cédric L. R.; Bruna Meredith, Cristian; Dunbar, Michael J.; Hannah, David M.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3231-2017

Articles | Volume 21, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3231-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3231-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 6

Research article

|

30 Jun 2017

Research article |

| 30 Jun 2017

Climate and basin drivers of seasonal river water temperature dynamics

Cédric L. R. Laizé, Cristian Bruna Meredith, Michael J. Dunbar, and David M. Hannah

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Final revised paper (published on 30 Jun 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 14 Jun 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'reviewer comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 Jun 2016
- AC1: 'Response to Reviewer#1's comments', Cedric Laize, 09 Dec 2016
RC2: 'Review comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 12 Nov 2016
- AC2: 'Response to Reviewer#2's comments', Cedric Laize, 09 Dec 2016

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by Editor and Referees) (22 Dec 2016) by Nandita Basu

AR by Cedric Laize on behalf of the Authors (27 Jan 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (21 Feb 2017) by Nandita Basu

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (08 Mar 2017)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (15 Mar 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

General comments

Laize et al. conduct statistical modeling of the relationship between climate variables and water temperature across large spatial and temporal scales and further investigate how basin conditions influence the climate-water temperature relationships. The statistical approaches they employ are reasonably advanced and seem appropriate for the stated purposes. The research findings are not overly surprising but they are generally well supported by the data. I believe this paper warrants publication in HESS subject to a pretty minor revision

Major comments

1. The introduction is excellent but long (9 paragraphs). There is a fair amount of theory/explanation that could potentially be moved to one of the sections describing the methods. I would invite the authors to at least consider this.

2. I would like to see a bit more discussion of the limitations of examining such large-scale spatiotemporal temperature patterns. The authors explain well the advantages of these scales (indeed this is a distinguishing characteristic of the paper), but what about the disadvantages (i.e. the paper limitations)? What is not captured by considering higher frequency patterns in time (e.g. heat waves and the role on ecosystems and other services)? Also, what is missed by not considering smaller scale spatial variability (i.e. thermal diversity or thermal refugia – see Kurylyk et al. 2015). Some of this ‘large-scale’ mindset influences the writing in places. For example, it is stated in P2, L28-30 that climate controls are most important, while hydrologic controls are of secondary importance. I would argue that order is (or at least can be) switched when it comes to thermal diversity.

Kurylyk BL, MacQuarrie KTB, Linnansaari T, Cunjak RA, Curry RA. 2015 Preserving, augmenting, and creating cold-water thermal refugia in rivers: concepts derived from research on the Miramichi River (Canada). Ecohydrology 8(6)

3. The results and discussion sections have unnecessary mini introductions that should be deleted (e.g. P15, L27 – P16, L3)

4. The discussion around P18, L23 addresses the relationship between the climate variables (and the WT sensitivity to them) and the basin conditions. I might be more careful with some of the wording to be clear that the authors did not look at long term climate sensitivity but rather how the seasonal climate data influenced the water temperature. For example, it is stated: “Thus, water temperature in 24 impermeable basins appears to be more sensitive to climate than in permeable basins”. The data in the paper do not support that this is true on a multi-decadal basis but rather just a seasonal basis. Climate implies long terms. Perhaps they should reword ‘climate’ as ‘seasonal climate data’ or something like this.

5. Table 2 and related text: Is it possible that precipitation was more a statistical indicator of streamflow (and thus thermal inertia) rather than an indicator of surface advective input? This seems like it could be especially true in headwater streams

Minor comments

P2, L20, the ‘(a)’ is misplaced in this sentence causing the sentence to read awkwardly.

P4, L1, ‘rarely’ should be moved before ‘coordinated’

P9, L7 typo (similar)

P9, L13, missing word(s) at end of sentence

P17, L1 should be ‘only partly causal’

P18, L28 I don’t think ‘damper’ is the right word (or a word)

Figure 1 caption should be slightly reworded. It is a bit confusing

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (further review by Editor) (14 Apr 2017) by Nandita Basu

AR by Cedric Laize on behalf of the Authors (24 Apr 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (03 May 2017) by Nandita Basu

AR by Cedric Laize on behalf of the Authors (05 May 2017) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

Stream temperature controls many river processes, making it vital to know how climate affects it. Climate and stream temperatures at 35 British sites and associated basin properties were used to model climate–water temperature associations and to assess how they are influenced by basins. Associations vary with season and water temperature range. Basin permeability, size, and elevation have the main influence; smaller upland or impermeable basins are the most sensitive to climate.