Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Different Urban Fabrics to Face Increasingly Hot Summer Days Due to Climate Change
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis manuscript uses the ENVI-met model to simulate the effects of several heat adaptation strategies (e.g., cool surfaces, green roof and water jets) on surrounding microclimate (including meteorological conditions such as air temperature and relative humidity). The results show that for two different areas, with different urban settings, the most efficient heat adaptation strategy is different. These results are informative for policy making on the optimal solution for sustainable urban environment.
The research design of this work is thorough and the writing of the manuscript is clear. Thus, I would recommend publication of the manuscript after minor revision.
My only major concern with the manuscript is why the authors, instead of averaging over the studied domain for air temperature and other meteorological conditions, chose to study the effect of heat adaptation strategies at a few receptor locations, and formed the recommendation based on one selected receptor location. Please provide more justification on the consideration here.
In addition, I have a few minor comments listed below.
1. Figure 3&4, should the unit be day instead of hour for the x-axis of the plots?
2. P13, line 442: why 65% is selected for the high albedo scenario? Theoretically, albedo can go to 80%-90%.
3. P15, line 479-486: Please consider rephrasing so that it is clear that R_HF1 (also R_HF2 to R_HF4) refers to two different locations in the Historical Fabric and Regular Fabric scenarios (right?).
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe English writing is overall clear and easy to understand. However, there are a few typos or phrasing that need to be corrected. For example,
1. Please consider rephrasing "the global surface temperature reached 1.1°C in 9 years (2011-2020) more than 30 in the 50-year period 1850-1900" (p1, line 30-31) and "and the global greenhouse gas emission will rise constantly with a rate of growth of 1.3 % yr-1 between 2010 and 2019" (p1, line 31-32)
2. Please change "The location of the receptors is" (p6, line 222) to "The locations of the receptors are"
Author Response
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses in the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors1.Line 29-line 57, these paragraphs shows that the growth of carbon dioxide emissions is difficult to stop, and the trend of global warming is inevitable. However, under this point of view, it is divided into several paragraphs, resulting in fragmentation, and it is recommended to integrate and simplify.
Even the whole introduction has this problem, like a draft, it is suggested to reorganize according to the point of view.
2.Figure 2, It is recommended to add a legend for two lines, showing which is historical and which is regular fabric.
3.Line 292,The definition of degree days should be clarified. Which degree？What does ‘the year’ stand for? In Line 295, you mentioned the degree days are 1185 days. So the year is not one year. How many years?
4.Figure 6, It is suggested to add annotations to each graph.
5. There are too many figures in the article, and some figures can be included in the appendix, such as Figure 3 and Figure 4. The section on simplified methods that references other research methods and the introduction of background can also be simplified.
Author Response
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses in the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper presents a methodology with the application of high-resolution 3D modeling software to analyze microclimate effects of mitigation and adaptation strategies derived from studying medieval urban fabric by taking the city of Bari as an example, which can identify effective mitigation and adaptation strategies applied to modern cities. The topic of the paper is interesting. However, the paper is not easy to be followed. There are many problems to be further improved.
Major concern:
1. The novelty of the manuscript is not distinct. It is advised to be focused more on the novelty of the paper including the difference between the paper and the former studies.
2. The title is a little inconsistent with the specific results.
3. There are large uncertainties in the conclusions of the study that are mainly based only two days’ simulations. The reasons for choosing 19July 2018 as the typical summer day should also be described.
4. The abstract needs to be rewritten by focusing more on the results of the study instead of the background description.
5. The introduction is advised to be rewritten to be more logical especially highlight the references directly relating with the study.
6. The legends of all figures should be described in detail especially including all the information in the figures.
7. The conclusions are advised to be rewritten by focusing on the main results.
Minor comments:
8. The abbreviations are too much. A table for describing the abbreviations are advised to be supplemented.
9. The keywords are advised to be simplified.
10. Line 31-32: The condition during 2010 to 2019 is a fact. “will” could not be used.
11. Line 38: “the buildings global energy-related emissions” should be “the global building energy-related emission”
12. The x-axis of Fig.3 and Fig.4 should be “Date number”.
13. Line 344-345: What’s the meaning for “1 m = 1 dx = 1 dy = 1 dz” and “1 m = 2 dx = 1 dy = 1 dz”?
14. Line 432-434: What’s the meaning for “the impact this”?
15. Line 473: What significance test is used?
16. Line 530: No “airspeed” is shown in Fig.14.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe paper is not easy to be followed. Pay attention to the English writing to improve the paper.
Author Response
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses in the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript “Urban mitigation and adaptation strategies in summer heat waves to cope with climate change” by Lassandro et al. aims to develop a methodology to analyze microclimate effects of mitigation and adaptation strategies derived from studying the city of Bari (Italy), characterized by different morphological fabrics. The topic is very interesting and the title seems to introduce a cutting-edge study. But is not so. The paper does not mention heat waves at all but only the hottest days experienced in Bari in the period 1998-2022, with the choice driven by meteorological data of dubious origin. The introduction is long, poorly organized and does not provide the correct background for the study, rambling on the topic of climate change and GHGs, which are not touched on in the results of the study. The numerical methodology implemented is also not rigorous. The figures are of poor quality, with important flaws. The results and conclusions of the study cannot be evaluated due to important methodological gaps.
Below are the major and minor comments.
Major comments:
Introduction: the introduction is extremely long, chaotic and totally out of context. The authors mostly talk about GHG and CO2 emissions although in the manuscript the results only refer to thermodynamic variables and, never, to variables linked to air quality (such as the in-situ concentration of CO2 or other GHGs).
Material and methods: the authors use the measurements provided by the "Weather Underground" portal as reference meteorological data but which station is chosen in the city of Bari? What period is actually analyzed? Above all, however, as the authors will know, private stations can also upload the data to weather underground, without guaranteeing the minimum reliability of the measurements, without giving information about the Q/A of the dataset. Only WMO compliant stations must be used for scientific studies. Is the one selected for the study WMO compliant? It would be more appropriate to refer to quality checked datasets, as, in the case of Italy, to micrometeological data provided by quality-checked national or regional networks. Having carried out a measurement campaign on a typically summer day does not absolutely guarantee that the historical series of the station is reliable, as, for example, the station could have been moved or tampered with and it is not certain that it has been calibrated over time .
Material and methods: ENVI-met is a software widely used for exercises but not very suitable for scientific research due to theoretical limitations and practical simplifications. To justify the choice of this software compared to others that are much more complex (and suitable for the case study...) such as Ansys-FLUENT, among others, the authors should include references to similar studies conducted recently.
Definition of the case studies: for readers who do not know the city of Bari (Italy) it would be very useful to add information such as Lat.-Lon of the city and insert a map in Figure 2 that allows you to geolocate the city in Italy and in the Mediterranean. This would certainly help readers to frame the study from a geographical and climatic point of view.
LL. 295-310: where does this data come from? From the time series of weather underground measurements? But from which station? Where is it located? What is the temporal resolution of the data? What is the percentage of missing data and how is it temporally distributed? All this information is necessary and fundamental to verify the correctness of the study.
LL. 311-313: as stated by the authors, climate change is causing many new daily maximum temperature records in recent years which, often, are not measured in July and August as in the past. It would be appropriate to extend the study at least to the months of June and September.
Figs 3-4: The x-axis reads “Time [h]” but the axis goes up to 31. Why doesn't it go up to 24? Furthermore, since the years 1998-2022 are analyzed, all years should be shown.
Fig.4: relative humidity is a function of air temperature and therefore cannot be considered as a representative variable. In its place, it would be appropriate to calculate the absolute humidity.
Minor comments:
Abstract: the location of the city investigated must be specified.
LL. 31-32: the authors talk about the increase in global greenhouse gas emissions between 2010 and 2019 in the future. Verb tenses should be revised.
L. 36: please introduce CO2.
LL. 37-38: “in the last decades” … ”from 2005 to 2021”. Please check the text and edit the sentence accordingly.
L. 62: what is JRC?
Sect. 3: what is reported is absolutely not the validation of the method which should concern the validation of the results of the simulations (after the simulations themselves, therefore) against the real meteorological measurements.
Sect. 3.1: the title of the paragraph must be changed. In its current form, the reviewer expected to read information about weather case studies, not fabrics. This part seems to refer more to Sect 3.2.
Figure 2: What do the orange and green dotted lines mean? Attention, the green line is not totally included in the figure. With reference to the text, it would be appropriate to report HF and RF in the figure. Furthermore, insert a map that allows you to geolocate the city in Italy and the Mediterranean.
Author Response
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses in the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsMy concerns are largely answered. I reccomend the manuscript to be accepted after some minor revision.
1. The introduction can be improved. For example, many "finally" or "final" influence the readability of the paragraphs.
2. Line 169-170: What's the meaning of "On this website"?
3. Line 228: Both the longitude and latitude of Bari are suggested to be given with 2 decimal places.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMy concerns are largely answered. I reccomend the manuscript to be accepted after some minor revision.
1. The introduction can be improved. For example, many "finally" or "final" influence the readability of the paragraphs.
2. Line 169-170: What's the meaning of "On this website"?
3. Line 228: Both the longitude and latitude of Bari are suggested to be given with 2 decimal places.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments:
Q1. The introduction can be improved. For example, many "finally" or "final" influence the readability of the paragraphs.
A1. Done
Q2. Line 169-170: What's the meaning of "On this website"?
A2. We specified the website
Q3. Line 228: Both the longitude and latitude of Bari are suggested to be given with 2 decimal places.
A3. Done
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors provided comprehensive responses to the reviewer's requests. The revised version of the paper is significantly improved and can be considered suitable for publication.
Author Response
Thank you
