Future Precipitation Scenarios over Italy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors failed to articulate the novelty of this paper. Similar downscaling analyses of future climate change have been done in many regions, including Europe. It is unclear in which aspects the authors have done something different or novel.  

Moreover, in addition to explaining the novelty of the analysis, the authors should also articulate the novelty of the results and findings. In the discussion section, the authors claimed that the analysis "confirm and strengthen the results obtained by analyzing the ENSEMBLES and Med-CORDEX models in previous studies." Simply confirming previous studies cannot make contributions to the field that warrant a publication.

I do not believe the manuscript can be accepted in current form.

Author Response

Now the novelty of the paper has been explain: multi-model scenarios are discussed and more spatial details allow to infer an update knowledge about the climate changes expected over Italy under three different socio-economic pathways.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I have the pleasure of reviewing this paper titled: “Future precipitation scenarios over Italy”. I did not see any novelty. Besides, the authors restricted themselves to their previous work without enriching the manuscript with other works that have been done in the EU region (even in Italy). The methodology is quite vague and contributes to the weakness of the paper. The figures are of poor quality. I would reject the current form of the manuscript.

Please find my specific comments below:

1. Please take this out. This is not important. “The study is presented as follows: data-sets and the adopted methodologies are presented in Chapter Error! Reference source not found.; the results are drawn in Chapter

Error! Reference source not found.; discussions and conclusions are reported in Chapter 4”.

2. What is the full name of the climate model shown in Table 1? At the very least, expand the table and provide the names of each acronym.
3. The introduction is too short.
4. What is this work contributing with regards to previously published works? Is this the first attempt in using Euro-CORDEX models in Italy or studying the effects of climate changes over Italy?
5. No methodology. This is a big weakness of the paper.
6. The authors mentioned “Two WMO ETCCDI” in the abstract. I could not see this being used anywhere again in the body of the text.
7. The resolution of Fig. 2 is really poor.
8. It is not clear if Figs 3 & 4 are on the same grid.
9. Troubling that the authors cited themselves excessively. What about other works, even in Europe or Italy?
10. The orientation of the paper in the current format is too local without any connection to other works done in the region.
11. Too many paragraphs. The paper should be reformatted. Only start a new paragraph if there are any striking changes from the previous conversation.

Author Response

Now many other works have been cited in the paper.
About the methodology, it states the multi-model ensemble mean approach has been adopted.
Now a graph about the validation of the model is inserted.
1. Now “Error! Reference source” are eliminated.
2. The table has been expanded and the full name of the climate model are indicated.
3. The introduction has been expanded.
4. The contribution with regards to previous published works has been reported in the conclusions.
5. The methodology is compliant the recommendations stated in the Program for Climate Model
Diagnosis and Intercomparison. Is consists of: checking the performances of each single model;
elaborating multi-model ensemble means; applying a statistical test (Wilcoxon rank-sum test) to
identify the area affected by significant changes.
6. Now the two WMO ETCCDI are mentioned correctly in the article.
7. The resolution of Fig. 2 seems poor because of the small dimension of the maps. It is the result of a
tradeoff to represent both the meteorological field and the results from Wilcoxon test.
8. The figures have the same grid.
9. Now many other works have been considered in the paper.
10. Now another work dealing with the climate change over Italy has been mentioned.
11. The paper has been reformatted according to the reviewer’s suggestion.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have edited the introduction and discussion sections to clarify the novelty of this paper. But it is not reflected in the abstract. I would recommend further revising the abstract to reflect the changes in the main text.

Author Response

According to the request of the revisor, now the novelty of the paper is reported also in the abstract, with the sentence: “highlighting some local trend in the different Italian regions so far little considered.”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1. Acronyms in the abstracts should only be used if that word is going to be used again the in text. For instance, Consecutive Dry Days (CDD) and extreme precipitations (R99PTOT) were only mentioned once, therefore, CCD and R99PTOT should be removed. The correct word meaning for RCP is “Representative Concentration Pathway”. This should be corrected.
2. There were two authors in the first submission with their respective contributions. This new submission is now a single-author manuscript. Therefore for the sake of the “conflict of interest” and “author(s) contribution” statements, what happens to the contributions of the other author if not named in this new submission. This should be clarified.
3. Follow the right format for Table 1
4. This paper needs serious English editing. This author did not take adequate care in editing the paper properly before submitting it. So many typos and grammatical mistakes. For instance on page 1, "Water withdraw is another cause of water vulnerability......" should be "Water withdrawal is another cause of water vulnerability"; Page 2,  "Considering that critical infrastructure are designed..... " should be "Considering that critical infrastructure is designed.....", etc
5. The references need reformatting to MDPI style.

Author Response

1. In the abstract the Acronyms CDD and R99PTOT have been removed.

RCP has been corrected with “Representative Concentration Pathway”.

2. The second author himself asked to be removed from the authors because he considered his contribution marginal. He is mentioned in the acknowledgements for the work done.

3. Now the Table1 has the same format as the template.

4. The editing has been revised.

5. The references have been reformatted.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx