Baseline Measurements of Waves and Currents along the Coast of Oman

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The reviewer has gone through the manuscript titled "Baseline Measurements of Waves and Currents along the Coast of Oman". This is an important work and deserves publication since the data will can be used for design of coastal structures in this area. I have however comments before recommending the publication. 

1) The introduction section should discuss more recent literature and should the overall length of this section can be expanded. I see that the section indeed discusses literature done in this particular area however more such studies could be cited in different areas having same climatic settings. 

2) I also recommend inclusion of a paragraph about numerical modelling of wave transformation and its state of art. The authors can refer to this paper "Afzal, M.S. and Kumar, L., 2022. Propagation of waves over a rugged topography. Journal of Ocean Engineering and Science, 7(1), pp.14-28.". It would be useful for some future study where this particular data can be used for validating the numerical model for long term wave prediction.  It would also be a good idea to write how modern tools like CFD are being used to model the wave transformations and cite relevant literature. 

3) The quality of figures 5 and 6 should be improved a little. 

4) I also suggest that if not already done then the raw data be submitted as additional file along with this manuscript. 

Looking forward to a revised manuscript. 

English language should be improved. 

Author Response

Attached

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper describes observations of wave heights and currents at 11 locations along the coast of Oman, with an objective to make a case for permanent monitoring of hydrodynamic environment in the Sea of Oman and the Arabian Sea. The findings are presented clearly, but the physical interpretation of the observations presented might need more clarity in places. Specifically:

 

 1. lines 262-264: “currents closer to the water surface respond to wind direction and tend to flow towards the South direction with North wind, and towards North direction with South wind because of Coriolis force “

Do they really?

Because of a small scale in figs 7&8 , it’s hard to be certain about any correlation between variation of currents, wind, and surface elevation. Still, currents in figs 7&8 appear to vary in tandem with the elevation. So, it’s tidal currents, driven by tidal circulation.  Then wind is irrelevant.  Also, Coriolis force making a particle to move opposite to the push is a somewhat novel interpretation of the Coriolis effect. Could you please elaborate more on that?

 

2. lines 285:287: “About 30% of the currents are directed in a direction between -80o to +80o from north and  about 80% of the currents are within -30o to +30o with respect to north. In other words, generally the currents are flowing either in eastward or westward direction. “ - needs to be re-phrased, to make sense.

(For one thing, “-30o to +30o ” is contained within “-80o to +80o “,  so it’s not possible for the inner interval to hold 80% of currents, while the encompassing interval holds just 30%. For another, “-30o to +30o with respect to north” points roughly north, rather than east or west.)

Looking at the map, “currents flowing either in eastward or westward direction” means currents along the shoreline. Any explanation for that?

 

3. “Wave Height Return Period Analysis” needs more details about the mathematical algorithm employed for  estimating a 100-year wave hight occurrence from two-month observations. Include the uncertainty of such an estimate.

 

Minor comments:

 

line 44: misplaced comma

line 52: oC

line 114: 50 m/s ?

Fig. 2: For a better look, reduce font size used for axes labels

Author Response

Attached

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript is dedicated to the ADCP measurements of the waves ans current parameters in the coast of Oman. These measurements and its following analysis is of great importance in terms of huge coastal developments due to the Oman Vision 2040 project. The paper is well-built, the study is important, but I have some comments on it.   1. There are some typos (some of them: degrees (line 52-53); Strait of Hurmuz instead of the Strait of Hormuz (line 68); font in line 222) 2. Did you compared somehow the obtained results with the previous data? Measurements or reanalysis? 3. In the Conclusions, I recommend to be more concentrated on the discussion of the results. The part with the comparative analysis of different approaches and of the преимуществах the chosen method I recommend to put in the Introduction. 4. In the conclusions, on the contrary, I would like to see more analysis on the possibility of using the data obtained. Nevertheless, I recommend this article for the publication with minor revision.

Author Response

Attached

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have carefully addressed my comments. 

Minor edits required.