Automating the Acoustic Detection and Characterization of Sea Ice and Surface Waves

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is well written and the results are clearly represented and discussed. The research design is very interesting as well as the analysis method applied to study the data. Even though one point measurement is not enough to describe the leads over the study area, i appreciated both the efforts to support the observations and structure of the mooring and the instruments used. ULS are should be used more extensively in polar regions. I think the paper can be already considered for pubblication in the present form. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments! We agree that a single point measurement is insufficient to comprehensively describe leads regionally across the study area, and there are even limitations in what we can deduce about the sea ice right at the mooring site. However, such limitations do not negate utility that such data may provide. The value of single-point measurements emerges when the ice draft data is combined with ice velocity data or when the ensembles are statistically characterized for the purpose of improving our understanding of the physical environment in the NE Chukchi Sea. These measurements are also useful for characterizations on timescales longer than the 15-minute ensembles (e.g., the fraction of time open water was present above the mooring on the order of hours or days).

Reviewer 2 Report

A well executed project which is coherent and scientifically sound.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comment. We have made adjustments to the introduction for better readability. We have tightened the writing where possible and improved focus by highlighting two novel aspects of this study: the use of an AZFP to calculate sea ice draft and wave height, and the use of the self-organizing map to automate the detection of open water within sea ice.

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments. Please see the attachment for our responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Brief comment from me: the manuscript is well written, and the experiment is well executed. However, the novelty of this research was not adequately described. 

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments. We have updated the introduction to highlight the two novel aspects of this study: the use of an AZFP instrument to calculate sea ice draft and wave height, and the use of the self-organizing map to automate the detection of open water within sea ice.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

It looks better now except for the variables in Figure 4 which are all in bold.

Are they all vectors or scalars?

If they are all vectors, then they should all be in bold otherwise the variables should regular.

 

 

Author Response

Thank you for pointing out the variables in Figure 4. As they are scalar, we have removed the bold formatting and updated the figure.