High-Resolution Mapping and Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Cropland Soil Temperature in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, China (2003–2020)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper focuses on high-resolution mapping and spatiotemporal dynamics of farmland soil temperature in Huanghuaihai Plain. The method is scientific, the data is detailed, and the core conclusion is clear. However, there is room for optimization in the completeness and logical connection of some details, which meets the basic requirements for academic paper publication as a whole.
1. It is only mentioned that the in-situ data of Lembrechts et al.(2026) are used, but the specific number and distribution density of sampling points in the Huanghuaihai Plain area are not specified, so it is impossible to judge whether the representativeness of the data to the study area is balanced.
2.：Although RFE-CV is mentioned to screen the optimal feature subset, the number of core variables and specific variables finally screened in each month and each soil layer are not clear (such as whether some reflectance variables are eliminated in a certain month), so it is difficult to reproduce the variable screening process.
3. It is mentioned that "latitude, altitude and soil type drive spatial heterogeneity", but the contribution weight of different factors (such as how much soil temperature decreases for every 100m elevation increase) is not specifically analyzed, and the reason why "low latitude fluvo-aquic soil and high altitude leaching soil warm faster"(such as the influence of soil texture and organic matter content difference) is not explained in depth.
4. The conclusion mentioned "supporting precision agriculture", but did not combine the growth cycle of main crops (wheat and corn) in Huanghuaihai Plain to analyze the specific impact of soil temperature changes on key phenological periods such as sowing period and filling period, which reduced the application value of the study.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1、In the data sources section, it is recommended to provide a more detailed description of the data origin and reliability, including data collection methods, quality control procedures, and data quality evaluation metrics.

2、In the results section, only RFE-CV was used, without comparison to mainstream feature selection methods such as LASSO, Boruta, or SHAP-based selection. This makes it difficult to demonstrate its optimality, and no variable ablation experiments were conducted.

3、The model performance evaluation only includes R², RMSE, and MAE. It is recommended to introduce additional evaluation metrics.

4、In the analysis of the spatiotemporal variation of soil temperature, it is suggested to add statistical visualizations such as heatmaps to more intuitively illustrate the variation trends.

5、Section 3.2 mentions the long-term variation trend of soil temperature, but lacks further discussion of how this trend differs across regions and the potential causes of these differences.

6、The discussion section provides rather general suggestions for future work, lacking specific research directions and methodologies.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper constructs a soil temperature prediction model and reveals the spatiotemporal dynamic changes of soil temperature through multidimensional analysis. The study has certain academic value and practical application prospects. However, the existing issues need to be addressed further to improve the study's broad applicability and precision. Overall, the paper demonstrates preliminary scientific and technical level, and with revisions, it may become more impactful. Specific recommendations can be found in the attached content.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Reviewers have responded to the questions as requested, resulting in improved quality of the manuscript and publication requirements.Therefore, it is recommended that the manuscript be accepted.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author has responded to all the comments.