A wind proxy based on migrating dunes at the Baltic coast: statistical analysis of the link between wind conditions and sand movement

Bierstedt, Svenja E.; Hünicke, Birgit; Zorita, Eduardo; Ludwig, Juliane

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-639-2017

Articles | Volume 8, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-639-2017

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

Special issue:

Multiple drivers for Earth system changes in the Baltic Sea...

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-639-2017

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

Articles | Volume 8, issue 3

Research article

|

17 Jul 2017

Research article |

| 17 Jul 2017

A wind proxy based on migrating dunes at the Baltic coast: statistical analysis of the link between wind conditions and sand movement

Svenja E. Bierstedt, Birgit Hünicke, Eduardo Zorita, and Juliane Ludwig

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Final revised paper (published on 17 Jul 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 16 Dec 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Referee Comment', Tarmo Soomere, 18 Jan 2017
- AC1: 'Response', Svenja Bierstedt, 16 Mar 2017
RC2: 'Review 2 of Bierstedt et al. 2017', Anonymous Referee #2, 16 Feb 2017
- AC2: 'Response', Svenja Bierstedt, 16 Mar 2017

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (17 Mar 2017) by Anna Rutgersson

AR by Svenja Bierstedt on behalf of the Authors (21 Apr 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 May 2017) by Anna Rutgersson

RR by Tarmo Soomere (02 Jun 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The manuscript has considerably improved (in particular, via inclusion of the estimates of statistical significance of some correlations) so that my general concerns 1–3 are removed.
While the level of presentation in the first two sections is acceptable, Sections 3 and 4 still contain numerous examples of poor usage of English that is mixed with heavy jargon. As I am not a native speaker, I am not able to provide comprehensive help for rewriting these sections and can only bring a list of items (see below) that definitely require correction. Still, after making these corrections (that will hopefully fix the message), there is probably a need for a help from a native speaker (who is also fluent in statistics) to reach a publishable version of the manuscript.
List of items to be corrected or adjusted:
Page 3, lines 10-11: „even long-term reanalysis data ... were shown to be difficult regarding long-term trend analysis“ could be said easier, e.g., „extracting reliable trends from long-term reanalysis data is complicated // difficult ...“
Page 3, line 14, omit „in different seasons“
Lines 17-18: consider replacing „the period covered by this dune system“ by „the period covered by reliable data from/for this dune system“
Page 4, line 19: omit „Regarding wind direction“
Line 20: consider saying „secondary“
Line 21: „wind climatology“ is a little bit jargon; consider saying „main features of the local wind climate“ or similar
Line 25: consider replacing „Both layers are“ by „This structure is“
Page 5, line 7 „observational wind data“ seems to hint to observations by a person; if this not the case, consider saying „[instrumental] wind records" or similar
Line 10: possibly „the dune structure“
Line 12: consider replacing „an amount“ by „quantification“
Line 16: omit „coastDat2“ as it is clear from the context
Line 34: replace „north-western wind information“ by „information about north-western winds“
Lines 34/35 “resort … and compared” do not match
Page 6. Line 1: “Baltic Sea level ...“ is ambiguous, consider using „Variations in the sea level of the Baltic Sea“ even though „sea“ occurs twice
Line 4: better say „wind properties“
Line 15: delete „different“
Lines 16-17: delete „360 degrees are divided into eight equal sectors“
Line 18: probably „owing to the limited length“ and full stop is missing.
Lines 27-28: replace „the leave-one-out validation“ by „this“
Page 7, Eq. (2): put the factor (1/n) before the summation sign; this makes the formula much clearer
Line 25 and much of the subsequent lines repeat the information given above and should be either removed or radically shortened
Line 27: perhaps „average“
Page 8, lines 3-4: two sentences „This dune migration is influenced by atmospheric parameters. These parameters are temperature, precipitation and wind.“ can be removed without any loss to the content
Line 13: instead of „The two meteorological parameters temperature and precipitation combined ...“ consider saying „The joint impact of temperature and precipitation ...“
Lines 18-19: consider rephrasing „Winter and spring show with and without frost days the same correlation sign ...“
Line 21: „wind properties“ is better
Lines 22-23: the point of the phrase „conditional on the shortness of the record“ is basically clear but it should be expressed differently.
Line 26: replace „regarding“ by „of“
Lines 28-29: consider replacing „… by applying two measures. One measure is the mean wind speed per wind direction calculated only in the days with mean wind from that particular wind direction. The second measure is the number of days per wind direction“ by, e.g., „by applying two measures: the mean wind speed for each direction (calculated only in the days with mean wind from that particular direction) and the number of days with a specific wind direction.“
Also, please explain how the mean wind direction is defined
Line 30: omit „for the eight predefined wind directions“
Line 32: omit „measure“ and start a new paragraph from „Because ...“
Page 9. Lines 2-3. „The number of days from a particular wind direction seems to be less effective in spring“ does not have clear meaning, please reformulate
Line 6: should be „number of days with wind from“
Lines 6-7: „the correlation between layer thickness and the number of days from particular directions displays opposite correlation,“ is unclear and should be rephrased as, e.g., „the sign of the correlation coefficient between the layer thickness and the number of days with winds from particular directions varies,“
line 8: „These opposite correlations“ is misleading also here; should be, e.g., „The alternating sign of the relevant correlation coefficient ....“
lines 13-14: the sentence „As a next step, we analyse days per wind direction with wind speeds over a predefined wind speed threshold to connect the two measures based on wind speed and based on days per wind direction“ does not make sense to me. Please use the above-suggested formulations (even if they are clumsy) to express the point.
Line 15: Does each bin covers a range of 1 m/s (for example, 4-5 m/s), or are they spaced differently?
Line 15 again: „The wind directions with non-negligible correlation coefficients ... “: What does it mean? Correlation coefficient between which quantities? The same applies to the next sentence.
Line 18, „dune layers and E and NE winds“. Do you mean „thickness of dune layers and strength of E and NE winds“ or something different?
In general, it is very hard to understand what exactly the two last (very short) paragraphs of Section 4.1 say. Please rephrase them so that it would be clear what quantities are addressed. Maybe use of a bulleted list would help. The presentation in the current shape is not acceptable for publication.
Line 26 use „wind properties“
Page 10, line 1: „best results“ sounds strange; do you mean a very good fit of the model with the data?
Line 8: „positive connection“ and „negative connection“ are not well-defined categories; please be more specific
Line 9: perhaps „the thickness of black layers“; the same on line 12
Line 24: replace „station data“ by „observed or measured wind data in the neighbourhood“ or similar
Line 25: remove „especially with regard to wind information“
Line 35: say „redistribute“
Page 11, line 4: consider replacing „have been linearly detrended prior to the calculation of the correlations“ by „have first been de-trended“
Line 16: consider replacing „station data“ as suggested above
Line 19: remove „we consider that“
Line 23: consider rephrasing „under-represented in the station data due to the station position located behind trees“ similarly as suggested above
Line 24: „compared to observations“ should probably be removed (as the result is the establishing of certain correlations)
Lines 26-27: „correlation values“ is heavy jargon; use „values of correlation coefficients“ instead
Page 12, line 6: the claim „the results showed positive signs for the white and black bars“ does not make sense unless the reader has absorbed all the jargon in the body of the paper and thus the sentence should be rewritten in plain English
Line 7: „some rain might improve the transport“ sounds very strange; the presence of rain may positively influence the transport rate or predispose the transport, but no more.
Page 18 and everywhere in the figure captions: say “Correlation coefficient” as this is the measure of the strength of the correlation.
Page 19, 21, 22 and 25: replace “Correlation values marked with * are significant for the 0.05 significance level“ by „The correlations marked with * are significant at a 95% significance level“
Page 24: replace „Correlation“ by „Spatial maps of correlation coefficients ...“; and remove „values“
Page 25: should „dune thickness“ be „layer thickness“?

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RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (04 Jun 2017)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (05 Jun 2017) by Anna Rutgersson

AR by Svenja Bierstedt on behalf of the Authors (13 Jun 2017) Manuscript

Short summary

We statistically analyse the relationship between the structure of migrating dunes in the southern Baltic and the driving wind conditions over the past 26 years, with the long-term aim of using migrating dunes as a proxy for past wind conditions at an interannual resolution.