Analysis of Factors Driving Subtropical Forest Phenology Differentiation, Considering Temperature and Precipitation Time-Lag Effects: A Case Study of Fujian Province

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is well written and the results are practical, and with a few corrections as described below, it deserves to be published in the journal

1. The abbreviation LOS was not mentioned in the abstract

2- SPI and SPEI indices are suggested to be used to detect drought and wet years and their effect on growth parameters.

needs some editing

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors demonstrated the phenological parameters changed by the analyzing of climate data of subtropical forest in Fujian Province utilizing the GeoDetector model with remote sensing technology. They show the numerous results to reveal the change of the growing season start, end, length and maximum. The results are interesting and valuable, however the description and the figure presentation could be improved. Here are some points to revise:

1. The sentence L25 to 27 appear the II, IV, I, III number without any explains. “The end of the growth season (EOS) and the maximum of the growing season (MOS) in coastal area” is not equal subjects. The EOS means the time of the EOS, the “MOS” seems to mean the maximum values of the parameters? There is no identification of MOS also in the content. “The MOS were later” is not clear description for the readers.

2. “LOS” appeared without any definition in abstract.

3. The legend and explanation of Fig 1 is not clear. The small and large figure in (a) is mixed together and difficult to understand and connect to the (b) and (c). I could not know if the figure includes only Fujian or with Guangdong, as I know this is another province. Why the costal site not include zone II? It seems also close to sea. What is the demarcation line mean?

4. The resolution of Fig 2 is not good enough.

5. The red circles and blue circles seems draws as the wish of the authors. I could not understand how the circle size and position decided. As I understand, if the color already shows the earlier/later pattern?

6. The description of the trend feature is not clear enough in Fig 7. I suggested the authors modify the part to be easier understand.

7. Fig 11 is too small and not clear.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf