Second iteration review of the manuscript nhess-2017-131 “On the improvement of waves and storm surge hindcasts by downscaled atmospheric forcing: Application to historical storms”, by Bresso et al.
Unfortunately the concerns regarding the methodology, and the quality of the text are stil present. The text still feels more like a technical report, and still needs improvement. I raise some questions below, but there are much more to be addresses. The text is also full of gramatical errors that should have not been passed to a second review iteration. Please revise once more.
P1-L5: Add the ECMWF reanalysis acronyms you are using between curly brackets after “reanalyses”.
P2-L8-9: Are you doing this? “A global atmospheric reanalysis is built using a data assimilation system and historical observations spanning an extended period.”
P2-18: ERA is not “European Reanalysis” but “ECMWF Re-Analysis”.
P2-20: The ECMWF reanalyses were not produce using a “coupled climate system, including atmosphere, land surface and ocean”. They have been produced by older versions of IFS, the ECMWF operational forecasting coupled model system. By “older” is meant a previous version, compared to the present (at the time) operational version.
P2-24: ERA-Interim is not “the reanalysis with the highest resolution”. There are several other reanalyses with higher resolution, like CFSR, MERA2, JRA-55, etc. ERA-Interim is the highest resolution reanalysis at ECMWF, so your statement is misleading.
P3-L2-5: This sentence (first paragraph on page 3) is full of inaccuracies and misleading statements: “Mean sea level pressure and surface wind are needed as atmospheric forcing to forecast wave and storm surges. In the present study, these two variables are obtained through reanalyses built using a given data assimilation system constrained by past observations. A dynamical downscaling is applied on global atmospheric reanalyses since their resolution is too coarse to deliver accurate information for hindcast.”
1. Not “obtained through” but “obtained from”.
2. The “downscaling” is not “applied” but a “dynamical downscaling of the global reanalyses is produced, since the global reanalyses are too coarse to force the regional wave and storm surge models”.
P6-L21-22: Stating the goal of the study in the results section is not correct. Move it to the introduction.
P8-L19: Which ERA?
P1-L1: Replace “analysis” with “reanalysis”.
P16-16: Why coarse resolution generates “strong uncertainties”?; What is a “strong uncertainty”? |