Return levels of temperature extremes in southern Pakistan

Zahid, Maida; Blender, Richard; Lucarini, Valerio; Bramati, Maria Caterina

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-1263-2017

Articles | Volume 8, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-1263-2017

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-1263-2017

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

Articles | Volume 8, issue 4

Research article

|

22 Dec 2017

Research article |

| 22 Dec 2017

Return levels of temperature extremes in southern Pakistan

Maida Zahid, Richard Blender, Valerio Lucarini, and Maria Caterina Bramati

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Final revised paper (published on 22 Dec 2017)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 02 Jan 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Referee Comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Jan 2017
- AC1: 'Response to Reviewer #1', Maida Zahid, 13 Feb 2017
RC2: 'Referee comment', Sylvie Parey, 25 Jan 2017
- AC2: 'Response to Reviewer #2', Maida Zahid, 13 Feb 2017
- AC3: 'Response to Reviewer #2', Maida Zahid, 13 Feb 2017
  - RC3: 'Return Levels of Temperature Extremes in Southern Pakistan', Sylvie Parey, 14 Feb 2017
RC4: 'Review "Return levels of temperature extremes in southern Pakistan" by M. Zahid and co-authors', Anonymous Referee #3, 20 Feb 2017
- AC4: 'Response to Reviewer #3', Maida Zahid, 27 Feb 2017

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (02 Mar 2017) by Fubao Sun

AR by Maida Zahid on behalf of the Authors (30 Mar 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (31 Mar 2017) by Fubao Sun

RR by Sylvie Parey (12 Apr 2017)

RR by Pingping Luo (01 Jun 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This manuscript is very important research on finding the temperature extremes. The author has done a lot of work on modification. However, I still found that there are some revision need to be carried before publication. Please use the continuous line number.
1. Introduction section, I think it need restructure the order and paragraph in this section. Some small paragraph should connected with another paragraph.
2. Page3-4, from Page 3 Line 22 to Page 4, line 5, It need make it shortly. It is difficult to identify your objectives.
3. Table 3, The first part of “Observed Tmax”, the format of line should be same with the others.
4. Figure 4, the figure is not clear because there are some background in the figure. Please try to delete the background and make the figure clearly.
5. Figure 5, the figure is not clear because there are some background in the figure. Please try to delete the background and make the figure clearly.
6. I suggest the author should add some discussion on how your work connected with the extreme storm or dry. What your result can be contribute for? Such as flood management and so on. What is your research limitation.
7. Reference is a little old, please try to add some recent references.
8. Suggested references:
Weili Duan, Bin He, Kaoru Takara, Pingping LUO, M. Hu, Nor Eliza ALIAS, and Daniel Nover, Changes of precipitation amounts and extremes over Japan between 1901 and 2012 and their connection to climate indices, Climate dynamics, Published online, DOI 10.1007/s00382-015-2778-8.
Pingping LUO, APIP, Bin He, Weili Duan, Kaoru Takara, and Daniel Nover: Impact assessment of rainfall scenarios and land-use change on hydrologic response using synthetic Area IDF curves, Journal of Flood Risk Management, Online, DOI: 10.1111/jfr3.12164, 2015.
Pingping LUO, Bin He, Kaoru Takara, Yin E Xiong, Daniel Nover, Weili Duan, and Kensuke Fukushi, Historical Assessment of Chinese and Japanese Flood Management Policies and Implications for Managing Future Floods, Environmental Science & Policy (SCI Journal, 2015 Impact Factor: 3.54),Vol.48, 2015, pp. 265-277, DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2014.12.015.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #5 (01 Jun 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Southern Pakistan (Sindh) is one of the hottest regions in the world and is highly vulnerable to temperature extremes. This study explores the return levels of daily temperature extremes in the southern part of Pakistan, including both daily maximum temperature and daily maximum wet-bulb temperature, which is of significance.

1. The manuscript lacks novelty. It seems to be just an application of widely-used methods in a new region. The authors said “the POT method was never used to analyze the risk of temperature extremes in Sindh” and repeated this point several times in their response. However, please remember “Just because it has not been done before is no justification for doing it now.” (by Peter Attiwill, Editor-in-Chief, Forest Ecology and Management.)

2. I agree with Referee #3 on his/her main points, especially for the suggestion of trend detection. Detailed test for stationarity in the observed data should be given because possible trend and abrupt changes will have great influence on the results. Referee #2 also pointed out that “The notion of return level is defined for stationary time series, that is without any cycles nor trends”.
The author said “-- considers the stationary extreme value analysis due to short duration of the data (33 years)”, I can’t agree on this.
The study period is from 1980 to 2013. In fact, the recent 3 decades are the periods that are with the most evident changes of temperature. What’s more, In Fig 4 (page 10) of Rasul et al. (2012), it shows a sharp rise in temperature during the first decade of 21st century. Besides, in Figure 11 (page 19), it also shows significant increase in heat wave frequency in Sindh at ≥ 40°C & ≥ 45°C.

Rasul, G., Afzal, M., Zahid, M., Ahsan, S. and Bukhari, A.: Climate Change in Pakistan Focused on Sindh Province., Technical Report No. PMD-25, 2012.
（It is also cited in the manuscript.）

3. The authors gave too many detailed results (figures and tables) of the intermediate process, but just showing the results is not enough, more discussion should be given. What are the spatial patterns in the shape and scale parameters for the observed data, ERA interim and other data in Fig 4? What about Fig 8 and 9? This kind of analysis should be added. Besides, some of the figures or tables may be given as supplement.

4. The “Summary and conclusion” section is too long. The authors should concentrate on the main results and conclusions of the current research. The introduction section is also too long and should be shortened. E.g. the sixth paragraph of “Summary and conclusion” should be deleted, which is suitable for the introduction part.
What’s more, the main conclusions are too specific, concentrating on some detailed data/facts. Earth System Dynamics is an international journal, the results and conclusion part should report more meaningful findings to the scientific community.

5. The bias correction method. The bias correction formula introduces the information of observed data which will surely improve the results of ERA data. On the one hand, we don’t need the ERA data when observed data are available for the past, so the bias correction method proposed by the authors seems to be not necessary; on the other hand, we need ERA or other reanalysis data to project future climate extremes. However, this method needs the observed data to make the correction. What’s the usage of this bias correction method?

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (26 Jun 2017) by Fubao Sun

AR by Maida Zahid on behalf of the Authors (22 Aug 2017) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (10 Sep 2017) by Fubao Sun

RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (12 Sep 2017)

RR by Sylvie Parey (12 Sep 2017)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by Editor) (11 Oct 2017) by Fubao Sun

AR by Maida Zahid on behalf of the Authors (18 Oct 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (07 Nov 2017) by Fubao Sun

AR by Maida Zahid on behalf of the Authors (16 Nov 2017) Manuscript

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Short summary

The southern part of Pakistan (Sindh province) has been exposed to frequent and intense temperature extremes recently and is highly vulnerable to their impacts due to lack of information on recurrence of extremes. In this paper for the first time we estimated the return levels of daily maximum temperatures and daily maximum wet-bulb temperatures over the different return periods in Sindh, which would help the local administrations to prioritize the regions in terms of adaptations.