Contribution of the Reconstruction of the Area of Seling Co Lake Using DEM Data and Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Variations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In my opinion this paper is very well organized and written. The work is dealing with a lake reconstruction and takes advantage of some very useful tools like Landsat imagery. It seems very useful to me to incorporate the abilities of Google Earth Engine and incorporate a very large number of satellite images without downloading and preprocessing. After that, useful results from the satellite time series is well derived and statistically explained. One very serious suggestion from me would be to change the title of the paper. I would suggest "Study of reconstruction.." or "Contribution...: or "Investigation...". The reason for that is that the authors are not the responsible persons for the reconstruction, and of course the same is happening with the methodology they use. The resocntruction is something that is happening independently - I suppose.

Some other minor suggestions:

Paragraph 2.2.2: Please consider the syntax

Line 164: Please correct the word which is repeated two times

Fifure 10: Please correctthe word "Sensonal"

Finally I would recommend to the authors to test the model to other water surfaces or other lakes and try to test  if such a high R2 value like 0.9 is remaining. I would like to see a paragraph explaining what it is expected to happen applying elsewhere.

Thank you

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Abstract

The Abstract determines the manuscript’s content and objectives in a very manifest and complete fashion.

1.       Introduction

Very well written and quite comprehensive.

2.         Materials and Methods

Good analysis and the choices of the Edge Otsu algorithm, the Theil-Sen Median based estimation method and the Mann-Kendall test are optimal. In L65 it should be added that temperature and precipitation are atmospheric circulation induced phenomena [1] and evaluate [2][3] and the phrase “It is probably the increasing evaporation, caused by rising temperature that offsets the hydrological effect of increasing precipitation.” [4] on whether temperature played a role.

3.       Results

Well worked out.

4.       Discussion

Well arranged, to the point and exhaustive.

5.       Conclusions

In agreement with Results and Discussion

References

[1]         Panagoulia, D., A. Bardossy, and G. Lourmas, “Multivariate stochastic downscaling models for generating precipitation and temperature scenarios of climate change based on atmospheric circulation D Panagoulia, A Bardossy, G Lourmas Global Nest Journal 10 (2), 263-272,” Glob. Nest J., vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 263–272, 2008.

[2]         Li, L., S. Yang, Z. Wang, X. Zhu, and H. Tang, “Evidence of warming and wetting climate over the Qinghai-Tibet plateau,” Arctic, Antarct. Alp. Res., vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 449–457, 2010, doi: 10.1657/1938-4246-42.4.449.

[3]         Chen, S., W. Liu, and T. Ye, “Dataset of trend-preserving bias-corrected daily temperature, precipitation and wind from NEX-GDDP and CMIP5 over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,” Data Br., vol. 31, p. 105733, 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.105733.

[4]         Jianting, C., Q. Dahe, K. Ersi, and L. Yuanyuan, “River discharge changes in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,” Chinese Sci. Bull., vol. 51, pp. 594–600, 2006.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx