Evaluation of drought representation and propagation in regional climate model simulations across Spain

Barella-Ortiz, Anaïs; Quintana-Seguí, Pere

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-5111-2019

Articles | Volume 23, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-5111-2019

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-5111-2019

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

Articles | Volume 23, issue 12

Research article

|

17 Dec 2019

Research article |

| 17 Dec 2019

Evaluation of drought representation and propagation in regional climate model simulations across Spain

Anaïs Barella-Ortiz and Pere Quintana-Seguí

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Final revised paper (published on 17 Dec 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 21 Dec 2018)

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, 11 Jan 2019
- AC1: 'Reply to Referee #1', Anaïs Barella-Ortiz, 12 Mar 2019
RC2: 'Interactive comment on “Evaluation of drought representation and propagation in Regional Climate Model simulations over Spain” by Anaïs Barella-Ortiz and Pere Quintana-Seguí', Anonymous Referee #2, 30 Apr 2019
- AC2: 'Reply to Referee #2', Anaïs Barella-Ortiz, 28 May 2019

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (28 May 2019) by Adriaan J. (Ryan) Teuling

AR by Anaïs Barella-Ortiz on behalf of the Authors (30 Jul 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (08 Aug 2019) by Adriaan J. (Ryan) Teuling

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (14 Aug 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

P refer to page and L refer to line number.

1. The abstract is difficult to read. The authors also mentioned the aim of the paper as well as the objective. They can combine these two.
2. P2L2: Although the paper does not discuss the socioeconomic drought, it is still worth to mention in this paragraph.
3. P2L22: I do not fully agree if RCM is frequently used at the catchment scale, except for big catchment.
4. P3L8-29: This paragraph can be shortened.
5. P3L30-31: I suggest to write a better opening sentence in line with the previous one.
6. P4L1-2: Since this paper has 2 objectives, so it should be writen: These are....
7. P4L15-17: This sentence is unclear.
8. P5L4: Remove the word "analyzed" and add "in the study" at the end of the sentence.
9. P6L15: ERA interim.
10. P7L25: More than 550 "land" cover types.
11. P8L26-27: ...and the third one or final by 8 stations.
12. P9L13-14: Variability does not mean drought.
13. P10L12: I am wondering why meteorological drought is represented by SPI-12. There must be a clarification from the authors about the use of SPI-12.
14. P10: In the drought index calculation section, there is no explanation about the SRI, SSMI, and SSI accumulation period. Later I know that it is 1 month.
15. P11L2: Here you mention SSI-1. You need to mention SRI and SSMI as well.
16. P11L13: I do not agree that meteorological drought occurs due to an absence of precipitation. Less precipitation can cause drought.
17. P12: Figure 2, from 1989 to 2008. Also for all figures, I prefer the alphabets a, b, c, d, etc are placed in the caption.
18. P14: Figure 3. The use of word aggregated is not well fit. Aggregated can have meaning accumulated. It is averaged, right?
19. P16: Figure 5. Actually, the white color in this figure is the area that is not studied.
20. P16L9: Reference for SPI classification is needed.
21. P17: Need a color-coding explanation for Table 3 and 4, especially about the gradient colors from red to blue.
22. P17L10-12: Please provide the Figure number in the text, thus the reader can easily refer to what Figure. Example: For example, the RS4 and ISB maps show similar patterns (Figure 6a and 6e).
23. P18L1: What do you mean with CL4 behavior is quite flat?
24. P19: Table 4 caption. Better use SMP instead of SIMPA model. Just to be consistent. I also suggest the author provide the average values of KGE for all station below the last row.
25. P20: For table 5 and 6, I suggest you writing the station names again and writing which column belong to i) and which column belong to ii).
26. P21: In the discussion section, why the results are different, are poorly discussed. Example different in the model structures, different in the LSM scheme, or how ET was calculated in the models, or how many subsurface layers the models have, different spatial resolution, etc.
27. P22L5: Becareful when you use term intensity for drought. Drought intensity is drought deficit volume/drought duration.
28. P24: Conclusion does not tell the reader about the results. For example which model performs better, how the meteorological drought propagates to hydrological drought, etc.

Like I said in my previous review, I am in favor of this paper. Therefore I hope the authors can carefully look at this paper again and address my suggestions.

Best regards

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (17 Aug 2019) by Adriaan J. (Ryan) Teuling

AR by Anaïs Barella-Ortiz on behalf of the Authors (10 Sep 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (18 Sep 2019) by Adriaan J. (Ryan) Teuling

Short summary

Drought is an important climatic risk. This study analyses drought representation and propagation by regional climate models from Med-CORDEX simulations using standardized indices. Results show that these models improve meteorological drought representation, but uncertainties are identified in its propagation and the way soil moisture and hydrological droughts are characterized. These are mainly due to model structure, making further improvements in land surface modelling necessary.