Responses of Extreme Discharge to Changes in Surface-Air and Dewpoint Temperatures in Utah: Seasonality and Mechanisms

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The introduction provides sufficient background and supported with relevant references. Methods were well explained. Results were well discussed. There are few edits please see the attachment. 

I have only one main criticism. Although the study is important for whole world, when you read the paper it sounds like a local paper for USA. please add a pragraph that how this paper's methodology can be used in different part of the world. For example: 

We focus on extreme discharge scaling with temperature and dew point  temperature  to infer what role climate change will have in shaping water  supply in the future climate. Assessing extreme discharge scaling with temperature and dew point temperature paves a way for improving the understanding between climate change and water  supply as well as guiding risk analysis and adaptation in a changing climate. our methodology can be a useful tool for water management.

The manuscript is well-written and organized. It can be accepted after some minor revision.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for the comments and suggestions. They are greatly appreciated and helped improve this work.

We addressed your main criticism regarding application of methods to the rest of the world by adding several sentences per your suggestion and example paragraph and they fit with the overall discussion. Wording was also changed elsewhere in the work to improve continuity and clean up minor grammatical errors.

Although, the methods in this work could apply to other parts of the world, datasets (temperature, dew point temperature, and stream discharge) that apply to other regions would need to be assessed for feasibility of such a study.

Although we did not split Figure 6 into two figures, we increased font sizes and graphic resolution to improve readability. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript title - Responses of extreme discharge to changes in Surface Air and Dew Point Temperatures in Utah: Seasonality and Mechanisms

Review comments

The manuscript is framed on the most important topic and is an active area of research. The manuscript is well-prepared and easy to understand. The following comments may further strengthen this manuscript.

General comments

1.     Similar to Figure 1 and Figure 2, it would have been better if the authors show the trend of surface air and dew point temperatures. That help to understand the effect of surface air and dew point temperatures on extreme discharge. There are similar sentences related to increases in temperature on lines 14-148, and 232-233. But, the trend in temperature is not explicitly incorporated.

2.     Include a description of the study area such detailed characteristics of the climate of the study area and a map of the study area.

 

3.     On line 21, it is stated…. “regional factors combined with topography are responsible for the marked seasonality…..”. Since it is in the abstract, it is better if the authors mention these regional factors. 

Author Response

Thank you for the comments and suggestions for both figures and text. They were greatly appreciated and helped enhance the paper further.

To address your first general comment, we created charts of trends in surface air and dew point temperatures like Figure 2 and in the same style and scaling. We also fixed the text to incorporate these new figures (Figure 2 is now Figure 2a, 2b, 2c).

We included a description of the study area’s geography and climate, which helped the overall discussion and flow of logic. It also tied in the other comment regarding line 21 in the abstract discussing regional factors.

Changes made to the text also included cleaning up some minor grammatical errors.