Impacts of Climate Change on Wildfires in Central Asia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The ms will likely interest the fire modelling community. The one addition I would suggest is to make clear that this indeed presents the interaction of spatial, climatic, and fire risk models. Each of those types of models all carry some degree, sometimes a high degree, of uncertainty. So the opportunity is there for a unsophisticated reader to view this as rigorously predictive. Part of that is the precision given in the estimates, down to tenths of percents. I know the arithmetic will yield that false view of precision, but keeping it to the nearest whole percent is plenty. For me I would report, for example, a "40%" increase or risk rather than "41.3%". These findings are made with a very broad brush.

Author Response

Point 1: The ms will likely interest the fire modelling community. The one addition I would suggest is to make clear that this indeed presents the interaction of spatial, climatic, and fire risk models.

Response 1: We rewrite the abstract, summarize the trends of weather, fire weather index and burned area in 2030s and 2080s. We described the interaction of climatic, and fire risk in introduction “Climate change will increase fire danger, and potential wildfires will increase significantly around the world in the future”. In results part, we analyzed the influence of climate change on MNI for each vegetation type in present and future. MNI changes showed different characters in 2030s and 2080s, which will helpful for local fire agencies to carry out adaptation measures on fire management.

 

Point 2: Each of those types of models all carry some degree, sometimes a high degree, of uncertainty. So the opportunity is there for a unsophisticated reader to view this as rigorously predictive. Part of that is the precision given in the estimates, down to tenths of percents. I know the arithmetic will yield that false view of precision, but keeping it to the nearest whole percent is plenty. For me I would report, for example, a "40%" increase or risk rather than "41.3%". These findings are made with a very broad brush.

Response 2: We used integer of percent in text and not keep the decimals. We think it is necessary to use the accurate number to describe the results, but we summarized the results in abstract (be rewritten) and conclusion.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is devoted to the actual topic of predicting the occurrence of wildfires in the context of global warming. For this, the authors use the modified Nesterov index (MNI).

I think the abstract is very overloaded with information (a lot of data) and needs to be reworked in order for it to fulfill its function.

I would also like the authors to more clearly indicate in the paper who is the author of the formula for the caculating of the MNI?

Predicting the level of fire hazard in the context of global warming, the authors take into account changes in meteorological conditions, and it is possible that the nature of the vegetation cover will change in this area.

Also, the authors should clarify the wording in the text of the paper when analyzing the results.

 

Author Response

This paper is devoted to the actual topic of predicting the occurrence of wildfires in the context of global warming. For this, the authors use the modified Nesterov index (MNI).

Point 1: I think the abstract is very overloaded with information (a lot of data) and needs to be reworked in order for it to fulfill its function.

Response 1: Revised. We rewrote the abstract to summery purpose, methods, results, and conclusion.

Point 2: I would also like the authors to more clearly indicate in the paper who is the author of the formula for the calculating of the MNI?

Response 2: Revised. We described the formula clearly as possible. Nesterov index is a well-known drought index (Sherstyukov, 2002; Groisman et al., 2007). We cannot read the references in Russian. So, we cited the references in English that we read.

Point 3: Predicting the level of fire hazard in the context of global warming, the authors take into account changes in meteorological conditions, and it is possible that the nature of the vegetation cover will change in this area.

Response 3: Revised. We discussed the limitation of this point in “discussion”. We didn’t simulated the influences of climate change on vegetation in the manuscript. Vegetation distribution was affected by many factors. Currently, Central Asian countries are in a critical period of economic and social transformation. Forest and grassland decreased during the period 1992-2003 and increased slightly during 2003-2015. However, their spatial distribution and vegetation types was no changed (Ruan et al., 2019). The countries in the region have made great efforts to increase the forest coverage rate and enhance biodiversity (Kleine et al. 2009). We assumed that the vegetation will not signification change in the coming decades. This point will not have influences on the judgment of fire weather changes under the future climate scenarios.

Point 4: Also, the authors should clarify the wording in the text of the paper when analyzing the results.

Response 4: We found American Journal Experts to help on language editing (with qualified citification).

Author Response File: Author Response.docx