Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I understand and appreciate the tremendous efforts of authors to get unique water structure records in the NE part of the Black Sea. However, this manuscript has no novelty and any significance of results. The advantage of observation data at 1-minute intervals does not come out.

Author Response

The authors are grateful for all comments.

In our work, for the first time, the long-term temperature data in the area of the Utrish NR was obtained. Similar data for the Black Sea were obtained only for 2-3 points in the entire region, it was described in detail in the introduction. Analysis of the diurnal cycle (number of days during the month, according to in-situ data) also is a unique information for the Black Sea coastal zone. An anomalous diurnal variation of 2.4 °C was found. Previously, all estimates were obtained only for the open sea.

The main results of the work are new for this region and improve the understanding of hydrophysical processes in the Utrish NR .

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript needs a careful revision, as explanied in the file in attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The authors are grateful for all comments. English was revised by native speaker.

The marine ecosystems of the Utrish NR belong to the coastal marine ecosystems of the North-Eastern Shelf of the Black Sea, characterized by a high mosaic of landscapes due to the bottom sediments, the shape of the relief and the range of depths. These factors determine the wave influence on the bottom, illumination, and, as a result, the distribution of dominant macrophyto- and macrozoo- benthos [Pearson, Rosenberg, 1987]. There are four main belt communities of loose soils and a rock belt community in the north-eastern Black sea coast [Ecological Atlas,2019]: "venus sand", Pitar rudis-Gouldia minima at the muddy sand with shells belt, Parvicardium simile belt, deep-water “phaseolina silt". The studied NR Utrish area includes habitats that are common throughout the coast (an active cliff, a narrow pebble beach, a boulder load, rock bench and soft sediments). Only two from three Black Sea well-known belt macrozoobenthic biocenoses were observed in the north-eastern Black Sea coast: the shallow-water "venus sand" and deep-water “phaseolina silt” [Kolyuchkina et al., 2018]. The boundaries between Pitar-Gouldia and Parvicardium simile biocenoses lie along the the seasonal thermocline [Kolyuchkina et al., 2020]. A thermocline shift could also lead to a boundary shift between communities.

Water temperature is one of the main factors determining the biogeographic distribution and vertical structure of benthos. The temperature regime determines not only the structure of communities, but also the metabolism intensity of organisms, that is, the functioning of ecosystems. [Alimov, 1979].

Thermal structure of water could be used for controlling and predicting changes in the natural environment, as well as for solving problems of marine nature management. The temperature regime determines the reproductive activity of many species (for example, the production of gonads in bivalves [Broom, 1985]). As a result, the temperature influences populations, especially those with planktonic larvae. Thus, the temperature regime is one of the factors that regulates biodiversity, population restoration of rare, protected and commercial species. Changing the temperature regime can lead to naturalization or elimination of invasive species, number of their populations, and as a result, to a change in the intensity of their impact on local ecosystems, including protected water areas.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Review: “Water structure in the national reserve Utrish (Black sea) during 2020-2021 year according to the thermistor chain data” by Ksenia Silvestrova, Stanislav Myslenkov, Oksana Puzina, Artem Mizyuk and Olga Byhalova – JMSE 2023

 

This work is timely, presents useful and very interesting results and it should be published after major revisions. I offer some comments and suggestions below.

 

1. Introduction

 

General comment: the definite article ‘the’ is missing in many instances, please edit appropriately – to mention an example on line 43: “Marine part of NR …” should read “The marine part of NR …”

 

Overall the introduction is too long and repetitive at times.  I suggest shortening it and make it more focus of the objective of the study.

 

In addition, just a few examples to illustrate my comments above:

 

Line 56: “Over the past three decades, the abundance of these species in the Black Sea has decreased 56 by more than 5 times.” Awkward sentence, ‘more than 5 times’ what? Need some specificity.

 

Line 58: “Although there were a bunch of researches devoted ….”, ‘bunch of researches’?  Too colloquial, not appropriate for a science article, please edit.

 

Line 68: “There are a significant achievements in the whole Black sea investigation.” Which ‘whole Black sea (by the way in other places ‘Sea’ is capitalized, please be consistent) investigation’ are you referring to?

 

Line 81: This line is NOT a sentence in English.

 

Line 116: “There are various number of models: …” Needs edit!

 

Line 118: “However, data assimilation are obvious problem for all of them.” What does this sentence refer to specifically?  Why ‘obvious’?

 

Line 131: “From the other hand reconstruction …” MUST edit for language and grammar!  “the other hand” requires a reference to a hand which I do not see in the previous text.

 

Line 137: “Identifying of its errors variability  …” This sentence does not make sense.

 

2. Materials and Methods

 

Overall the materials (observations, model data and models) seem adequate for the study.  What is not so clear MOSTLY because of issues of language is what exactly is the purpose of the study. 

 

What is the research question motivating the study of the characteristic of the water column? 

 

Why is it necessary to use 3 models?

 

About English language, for example in Line 160: “ …. since 15 March 2021 to 19 May 2022” It is not ‘since’ but ‘from’, same for all periods. The last sentence of this paragraph is nor a proper sentence in English!

 

Line 247: time scales are NOT ‘large’ or ‘small’; they are ‘long’ or ‘short’.

 

3. Results

 

I find this section very interesting but it needs editing for clarity (some repetitiveness also). 

 

Figure 11 needs a sharper focus, may be thicker lines and larger fonts for axis labels.

 

The weakest part of the results is the subsection 3.5 on “Model quality assessment”

 

Why is this done? 

What is the need for this assessment?

 

Then, on Line 521: “Such differences in model results suggests that models with similar initial data have different settings for physical processes, which in some cases can provide advantages.” What is the exact meaning/purpose of this (rather unclear) sentence?  Most models might ‘have different settings for physical processes’ (I assume the authors mean ‘parameterizations’ since one would expect the basic hydrodynamic equations to be the same) indeed, but is this sentence trying to explain something specific about the models used here? 

 

A Final Comment: this section should be renamed “Results and discussion”

 

4. Discussion and conclusions

 

To me this section should be called “Summary and conclusions”.  The results section contains enough discussion, in my opinion.

 

I also recommend re-structuring this very useful section: Start with a summary paragraph of the work and then follow with the ‘main results of the work’ (now in Lines 590 – 610) and only after this summarize in a paragraph (may be two?) the shortcomings and limitations – which the authors write interspersed in the text from Line 558 to Line 588 – of the work in a more focused manner.

 

I appreciate the criticality with which the authors assess their own work! I also note that some of the questions I had earlier (purpose, objective of modeling part) get answered in this section.  They should have been made clearer earlier. 

Author Response

The authors are grateful for all comments. English was revised by native speaker. Please see the attachment for more detailed information.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I suggest to the authors a last careful reading of the paper, as there are some minor corrections nneded, as for instance:

The minimum temperature registered at the bottom (33 m) 21 March 2022 and was equal 7.7 °C. line 256