Integrating multiple satellite observations into a  coherent dataset to monitor the full water cycle –  application to the Mediterranean region

Pellet, Victor; Aires, Filipe; Munier, Simon; Fernández Prieto, Diego; Jordá, Gabriel; Dorigo, Wouter Arnoud; Polcher, Jan; Brocca, Luca

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-465-2019

Articles | Volume 23, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-465-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Hydrological cycle in the Mediterranean (ACP/AMT/GMD/HESS/NHESS/OS...

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-465-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 23, issue 1

Research article

|

25 Jan 2019

Research article |

| 25 Jan 2019

Integrating multiple satellite observations into a coherent dataset to monitor the full water cycle – application to the Mediterranean region

Victor Pellet, Filipe Aires, Simon Munier, Diego Fernández Prieto, Gabriel Jordá, Wouter Arnoud Dorigo, Jan Polcher, and Luca Brocca

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Final revised paper (published on 25 Jan 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 19 Jun 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Comments on ‘Integrating multiple satellite observations into a coherent dataset to monitor the full water cycle - Application to the Mediterranean region’ by Pellet et al.', Bob Su, 24 Jul 2018
- AC1: 'Authors response', Victor Pellet, 21 Sep 2018
RC2: 'Review of “Integrating Multiple Satellite Observations into a Coherent Dataset to Monitor the Full Water Cycle – Application to the Mediterranean Region”', Anonymous Referee #2, 22 Aug 2018
- AC2: 'Authors response', Victor Pellet, 21 Sep 2018

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (30 Sep 2018) by Eric Martin

Dear Authors,

I am pleased to say that both reviewers agree on the fact that this paper presents a significant contribution to the scientific community, in particular with respect to the estimation of water balance from satellite observations, that deserves to be published in HESS.
However, the reviewers highlighted several majors points that will need to be corrected before this manuscript can be published.

Hence, I encourage you to submit a new version of the manuscript, which takes into account the comments made. The new version of the manuscript will be submitted to the reviewers.

In addition, I indicate below a few remarks from my side, which generally overlap with the reviewers' remarks.

(1) The paper is sometimes difficult to read due to the description of a large amount of technical informations that mask the main message of your work. It is important to describe the scientific objective well throughout the manuscript. For example, the current introduction is very descriptive, lacking the authors' analysis, as well as the presentation of the paper's precise objectives, before the presentation of the plan. Similarly, it is important for each section to recall the scientific context.

(2) In your answers, you indicate that this dataset would be available from the authors. It seems to me that HyMeX has developed a strategy to make the data produced available to the scientific community, with different levels of access as appropriate. Even if you do not wish to widely publish this dataset, the use of this database could contribute to better promote your work. Is it possible to use this architecture to make this data available?

(3) Please check again the Figures and the legends. Some still need to be improved as suggested by the reviewers.

With my best Regard

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AR by Victor Pellet on behalf of the Authors (08 Oct 2018) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (21 Oct 2018) by Eric Martin

RR by Bob Su (08 Nov 2018)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (21 Dec 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

In my view, the authors have done a good job addressing the major issues raised in the first round of reviews. However, the manuscript still contains a larger number of minor English and sentence construction issues. See below for an (incomplete) list of minor issues that should be addressed.

1) First sentence of the abstract is vague (complex is what regard? How is a
“hot-spot” defined?). Consider re-wording. Also “environment” is awkward English, consider “climatic region” instead.

2) Line 4, page 1: Awkward English, consider instead “…their utility is still reduced by large uncertainties and incoherencies among the products.”

3) Line 9, page 1: Give an actual size of the “pixel scale”

4) Line 16, page 2: change “the need of” to “the need for”

5) Line 9, page 2: change to “datasets” (EO is plural)

6) Line 26, page 2: should be “…a large closure constraint”

7) Lines 32, page 2: This is a run-on sentence. Start a new sentence around “Rodell et al. 2015”. Also, Rodell should be an in-text reference (check HESS style on this).

8) Lines 34, page 2 – change “thinner” to “finer”

9) Lines 10, page 3 – It would be helpful to add a brief (1-2 sentence) description of the SW+PF. As currently written, the relationship of that approach to the one proposed here (or the CCM approach mentioned later in the paragraph) is unclear.

10) Line 19, page 3 – what is meant by the combination approach?

11) Line 31, page 3 – “…in THE appendix”

12) Line 1, Page 5..change “will” to “goal”

13) Line 9, page 6 “…we USED the 6-hour ERA-1…”

14) Lines 16-24, page 6…stick to the past tense here “used” instead of “use”. “substitute” instead of substitute.

15) Lines 25, page 6. This note above combining the Mediterranean and the Black Sea (not “Seas”) into a single reservoir is confusing since the abstract mentioned that the calculation of the net Bosporus is a major contribution of the paper. Can this be clarified?

16) Section 2.3 – the writing slips back into the present tense here. Either the past or the present tense, is ok in the methods section, but try to be as consistency as possible.

17) Page 7, lines 19 – change to “…particular satellite datasets…”

18) Page 8, line 12 – change to “…the total areas of both seas.” (sea here is not a proper name and should not be capitalized).

19) Page 9, line 13 - I’d make another sub-section heading for “Optimal Section (OS)”…seems odd to be talking about OS in the SW sub-section.

20) Page 9, line 26. Delete “then”…should be “…requires un-biased…”

21) Page 9, top. What is the “TMPA Season”?

22) Page 10, second line ”seasonal bias” should not be capitalized.

23) Page 10, line 4 – “…all the precipitation products will have a similar seasonality…”

24) Page 10, line 5. Trend at what time scale? Inter-annual?

25) Page 10, line 20. “Basin” here should be capitalized (part of a proper noun).

26) Page 11, line 9. “detriment of some hypotheses…and some uncertainties” is awkward English. I’d just say that the an excessively tight closure constraint is inconsistent with large inherent uncertainties in the closure calculation.

27) Page 12, lines 9-10. This sentence is awkward English…consider rewriting.

28) Page 13, line 18. “supposed” is the wrong word here “assumed” would be better.

29) Page 14, lines 4-5. This is a run-on sentence, add a comma before “but”.

30) Page 14, lines 25. Clarify what is mean by “spatial continuity” in EO errors. Here, the authors seem to assert the closure constraint extrapolation is justified based on unique properties of EO data. However, it’s not completely clear which properties (spatial continuity or coarse spatial resolution?) they are actually talking about.

31) Page 15, lines 28. “ERA-1 stands for” is unclear/awkward….maybe “provides” instead?

32) Page 16, lines 14..should be “in THE Appendix”

33) Page 17, lines 2…change to “…outside of them improves the unconstrained…”

34) Page 19, line 18…some INTERANNUAL(?) variability (to be more specific)

35) Page 20…”Black Sea” should always be capitalized (line 12)

36) Page 20, line 29…why is the lower number given first?

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RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (02 Jan 2019)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (02 Jan 2019) by Eric Martin

AR by Victor Pellet on behalf of the Authors (16 Jan 2019) Manuscript

Short summary

This study is an effort for a better understanding and quantification of the water cycle and related processes in the Mediterranean region, by dealing with satellite products and their uncertainties. The aims of the paper are 3-fold: (1) developing methods with hydrological constraints to integrate all the datasets, (2) giving the full picture of the Mediterranean WC, and (3) building a model-independent database that can evaluate the numerous regional climate models (RCMs) for this region.