Sensitivity of Grassland Coverage to Climate across Environmental Gradients on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

The quality of the paper has significantly improved after enhancing the data and results sections. I recommend that the journal considers accepting this article.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The communication Sensitivity of grassland coverage to climate across environmental gradients on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is interesting and well designed, but there are small problems to solve:

 

1.     Page 2, row 99, please use only abreviation PSDI because you explain in Introduction the meaning of this.

2.     Page 2, row 114, I think that the number of zone is missing.

3.     Page 6, rows 226 and 227, please link the sentences.

4.     Page 10, row 350, remain 0 or zero?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

manuscript title: “Sensitivity of grassland coverage to climate across environmental gradients on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau-ID= remotesensing-2396062”.

The main queries which need to reply are listed below:

 1- Abstract is not prepared in a scientific structure. It doesn’t present all parts of the research and needs to be modified. For example, what kind of remote sensing data are used. Also, adding some quantified results helps to improve it.

2- Partial Vegetation Cover is shown by “FVC”! (line 16).

3- please insert an image of NDVI and show its variations duration 2000-2018.

4- please insert an image which shows the temperature and precipitation variations in the study area.

5- PDSI data is not calculated by yourself. How did you validate these data.

6- Fig. 5 is not clear and should be replaced by a better figure.

7- An important point regarding Results and Discussion is that no comparisons are made between the results of this research and those of similar works.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article ‘Sensitivity of grassland coverage to climate across environmental gradients on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau’ attempted to applied remote sensing data and trend analysis methods to quantify the spatial and temporal variation of grassland vegetation cover on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. However, the current version did not satisfy the publication requirements. The Methods and Discussion sections need to be reorganized and strengthened.

 

I would recommend it for publication after a thorough and significant revision. The details are in the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I reviewed the manuscript entitled " Sensitivity of grassland coverage to climate across environmental gradients on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau" by Wu et al. This study employed satellite and climate observations and statistical models to investigate the response of grassland coverage to climate across environmental gradients across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. However, there are still many shortcomings in this article.

1. The spatial resolution of the data sources meteorological data is too coarse (0.5degree, ~ 50km). In fact, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region is very undulating and differences in altitude severely affect the spatial heterogeneity of climate factors (especially the effect on temperature). Therefore, the CRU dataset based on a 0.5 degree spatial resolution is unable to characterize the sensitivity of grassland vegetation cover to environmental factors on the Tibetan Plateau. The findings and conclusions of this article are unconvincing.

2. Abstract: The Abstract section is too vague and there is too little description of the ‘results section’.

3. Line47, full name of ANPP is not given.

4. Line57, full name of QTP is not given.

5. The serial number of the reference should be preceded by a space. Eg. Line77, 91, 101, 106, 126,128 and so on.

6. Line111: The authors do not give a specific description for the resampling method.

7. Discussion: The discussion of the uncertainties of the study needs to be added.