Spatial distribution of oceanic moisture contributions to precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau

Li, Ying; Wang, Chenghao; Huang, Ru; Yan, Denghua; Peng, Hui; Xiao, Shangbin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6413-2022

Articles | Volume 26, issue 24

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6413-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Hydrological response to climatic and cryospheric changes...

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6413-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 24

Research article

|

21 Dec 2022

Research article |

| 21 Dec 2022

Spatial distribution of oceanic moisture contributions to precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau

Ying Li, Chenghao Wang, Ru Huang, Denghua Yan, Hui Peng, and Shangbin Xiao

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Final revised paper (published on 21 Dec 2022)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 30 May 2022)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on hess-2022-171', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 Jun 2022

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://hess.copernicus.org/preprints/hess-2022-171/hess-2022-171-RC1-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-171-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Ying Li, 18 Aug 2022
  
  Thank you for the comments. Please see the point-to-point responses in the attached document.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-171-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on hess-2022-171', Ruud van der Ent, 14 Jul 2022

General comments

The authors analyzed the moisture sources of the Tibetan Plateau using 3 different reanalysis products, a widely used moisture tracking method WAM2layers and additional stable isotope data.

English editing of the paper is absolutely necessary as there are many small mistakes, but this can easily be solved using and English editing service.

Scientifically, the paper is clear, but the whole analysis can also be considered rather straightforward meaning that the novelty is somewhat minor. Obviously not all papers have to be major breakthroughs, but it would be nice if the authors could indicate a bit more specific what we now know that we did not know before from other studies that analyzed the moisture sources of the Tibetan Plateau.

My major comment regards the analysis in subsection 3.3 and the conclusion that a decrease in oceanic moisture contribution resulted in reduced TP precipitation. I have strong reservations with this conclusion since as far as I can see the cause and effect could very well be the other way around. This needs more detailed investigation and possibly less strong conclusions.

I attach more specific comments as a supplement.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-171-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Ying Li, 18 Aug 2022
  
  Thank you for the comments. Please see the point-to-point responses in the attached document.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-171-AC2

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (27 Aug 2022) by Thom Bogaard

AR by Ying Li on behalf of the Authors (02 Oct 2022) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (07 Oct 2022) by Thom Bogaard

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (14 Oct 2022)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Dear authors,
I am sorry to find that you did not proper apprehend and response to my 2 major comments in general part, and 1, 2 in specific part.
1. I really admit several good moisture tracking models Eulerian based method in previous studies were better than Lagrangian based model, while my comments indicate your Eulerian moisture tracking model, eg. WAM-2layers, was not as good as these moisture tracking models. Please read and check carefully the references in line 94-95 in you revise manuscript (around line 70 in original manuscript), and you will find your comment about “However, the differences between absolute and relative contributions have rarely been explored over the TP (Zhang et al., 2017; Pan et al., 2018; Chen et al., 2019; Qiu et al., 2019).” was not pertinently. Also there was another reference of moisture tracking based on Eulerian method missing, which published in JC 2020.
Also, I had indicated the weaknesses of your model in my first review in light of the introduction, you should indicate its disadvantages and uncertainties, for instance examining the moisture conservation by comparing the tracking moisture and moisture in original model. Normally, only addressing the advantages of oneself is not sufficient in scientific researche.
2. In view of the authors did not carefully approach and pertinently evaluate the previous references, I don’t agree the novel contribution of this study. I my first review, I had admit the newly work of this study, eg. the comparisons of moisture sources evaluation based on the various atmospheric reanalysis products and the relationship between model oceanic source and isotope δ18O. While the authors did not comprehend and did not realize the combination of the 2 points are also helpful in model evaluation and uncertainty analysis.

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RR by Ruud van der Ent (07 Nov 2022)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (22 Nov 2022) by Thom Bogaard

AR by Ying Li on behalf of the Authors (30 Nov 2022) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (01 Dec 2022) by Thom Bogaard

AR by Ying Li on behalf of the Authors (02 Dec 2022) Manuscript

Short summary

Spatial quantification of oceanic moisture contribution to the precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) contributes to the reliable assessments of regional water resources and the interpretation of paleo archives in the region. Based on atmospheric reanalysis datasets and numerical moisture tracking, this work reveals the previously underestimated oceanic moisture contributions brought by the westerlies in winter and the overestimated moisture contributions from the Indian Ocean in summer.