Changes in Beaufort High and Their Impact on Sea Ice Motion in the Western Arctic during the Winters of 2001–2020s
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to review and guide our manuscript. Revisions made in response to your comments are in green font in our manuscript. The point-by-point responses to all comments have been prepared and submitted in the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper examines Arctic sea ice motion as a result of the Beaufort High (BH) and broader modes of atmospheric variability, namely the Arctic Dipole and Arctic Oscillation. The paper applies trend analysis and empirical orthogonal functions to evaluate satellite-derived sea ice concentration, drift (ice area flux), and ice age associations with near-surface atmospheric circulation patterns and the aforementioned indices interannually and interdecadally over two select periods, 2001-2010 and 2011-2020.
Main findings include accelerated Western Arctic sea ice speed since 2001, compared to the long-term mean, and higher (lower) ice area flux in the Western Arctic, namely from the Chukchi Sea, is generally found under strong (weak) BH conditions. Decreasing ice transport between West Arctic sub-areas through the last two decades is associated with a weakened Beaufort High, but there is not a significant correlation found between ice speed and BH magnitude from 2001-2020. Changes in the nature of the age of the ice may play a role in modulation these atmospheric pattern-sea ice motion/flux relationships.
The authors pack a lot of information into the paper in an attempt to understand how variability in the West Arctic ice response is related to near-surface pressure changes. The paper could use a more clear roadmap to end Section 1, i.e., detailing what the study aims to accomplish. Even a list of 2-3 objectives would help the reader understand the goal(s) of the paper. Some background in Section 1 is given to set up the study’s motivation, however, some more recent work related to the study by Babb et al. (2022) Geophys. Res. Lett, for example, on Beaufort Sea multi-year ice transport, should be discussed. Bridging this more recent work and other background studies, the authors should explicitly state what new questions they hope to answer through this paper.
Several comments of a major and minor nature are provided below. The paper could additionally benefit from a thorough grammar check and line numbers should be added throughout the paper for ease of (re-)review.
Comments
-Section 2.2.1, paragraph 1: Ties of EOFs to Pearson and Lorenz should be accompanied with citations to their relevant papers introducing and applying the technique.
-Section 2.2.2
-paragraph 1: How and why are these two periods selected? Are results sensitive to the selection of decadal or sub-decadal periods?
-paragraph 2: “shown in red pentagrams in Figure 1” – I do not see these features in Figure 1. Please revise.
-paragraphs 3 & 4: were the AO and DA indices both obtained from online data archives or just the AO? Please clarify.
Section 3.1.1
-paragraph 1: “frequent intrusions of North Atlantic low-pressure systems” – do you specifically track storms or is this information gleaned from other papers? Please clarify.
Section 3.1.2
-paragraph 1: please describe in more detail how climatological and linear trends are removed either here in the text or within the methods section
-Figure 4/Figure 5 and corresponding text: the EOF plots extend from 60-90N, but the EOFs and their time series are described as “north of 70N”. This is very confusing as presented. Should the captions text reflect these modes are north of 60N?
-paragraph 2: Does Figure 5a show strong low pressure over the Central Arctic in contrast to Figure 4a? The text does not clearly interpret the maps. Figure 5b could also be more clearly described as to what the maps show.
Section 3.2.1
-Figure 6, paragraph 1: the drift speed is listed as km/d/a, but the time series y axes show this speed as km/d. This velocity should be consistent between the text and figures. Also, in Figure 6, what does the “R” (correlation?) represent?
Section 3.2.2
-Does Table 2 (columns 2 and 3) quantify Figure 7a? This is very confusing as currently presented.
Section 3.3.1
-paragraph 2: “influence of a lower BH would lead to a reversal of sea ice…” What is meant by a lower BH?
-also, “Sea ice transport exceeded two standard deviation of the mean at two flux gates in the winters of 2013 and 2017” – I would suggest listing the type of BH extreme (high or low pressure) and spelling out which flux gates experienced these ice area area flux extremes? While D1 and D2 periods run through the paper, suggest the authors describe the A1-2, B1-2 flux gates here and through the rest of the paper rather than injecting another abbreviation into the text, which are hard to follow and require the reader to go back and revisit Table 3.
Section 4
-paragraph 2: SIM patterns vary considerably under different SLP regimes over time, in part, because the ice is thinner and more mobile. This point should also be emphasized.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageSee comments to authors section of this review.
Author Response
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to review and guide our manuscript. Revisions made in response to your comments are in red font in our manuscript. The point-by-point responses to all comments have been prepared and submitted in the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments for author File: Comments.pdf
minor corrections needed
Author Response
Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions, we have revised the manuscript according to your comments. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors' revisions have improved the paper. Two areas could be better integrated into the text, namely response to comment 1 (clearly stating study objectives; recommend doing so in lines 64-75) and concern 4 (a more clear justification of why sub-periods were selected and addressing whether the results are affected by selection of these periods (if so, more discussion is needed to justify picking them for this analysis)).
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor spell check encouraged.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions, we have revised the manuscript according to your comments. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you very much for the specific suggestions you have given, we have made corrections in the corresponding positions according to your suggestions. Please see the manuscript.
