Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Your research is comprehensive and efficiently summarize the efforts for a geoengineering solution to limit the Arctic Sea Ice decline.

Ethical, political and social issues linked to the implications within the Arctic are well explained and analyzed, furnishing an overview of the situation from different points of view.

All these good aspects support the manuscrpt publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
We thank you for taking the time to read and evaluate our manuscript. Your comments and time are very much appreciated.

Thank you!

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors choose an actual topic to analyse the Arctic Sea ice decline from the perspective of securitization, consequentialism, and risk governance approaches. Nonetheless, it is clear that review of published materials of other authors had presented in the paper. The reviewed material is grouped in several rubrics. Any statistical or other formal methods for the evaluation of cited material have not been applied, therefore the paper must be qualified as a review paper. The aims deals with “examine the common circumstances involving the pursuit of Arctic geoengineering solutions through internationally based management within the context of security and ethics, as well as to emphasize the importance of proactive and inclusive governance approaches toward the development of solutions.” However, the authors’ verbal analysis without application of any correct methods cannot impartially undervalue the geoengineering solutions and emphasize the importance of their importance for proactive and inclusive governance, and thus to formulate reasonable conclusions.

It is regret to say, that the paper in present readiness has not to be recommended for publication considering these circumstances and high requirements for international scientific publications with citation index. However, the authors are able to improve and resubmit the paper again.   

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for taking the time to read and review our manuscript. Based on this, we do agree that this article fits more effectively within the ‘review’ paper category, and per discussions with the editor, will be categorized as that going forward. 

Reviewer 3 Report

[General Comments]

This article introduces a systematic strategy for using geoengineering approaches and, at the same time, mitigating possible international conflicts by using it. The manuscript is spending a lot of pages explaining the topic and providing relevant examples. It would be better to emphasize what is newly done by this research. Also, authors should clearly provide the definitions of key terminologies such as securitization and consequentialism.

 

[Minor comments]

Figure 1: Line colors in the right panel are not well-matched with the colors in the legend box. For example, I cannot find deep violet color indicating the 2020-2021 period.

L75: km2 --> km²

Section 2: It would be better to introduce more observational (in situ or satellite remote sensing) studies that report current Arctic climate changes. Such as sea ice thickness, sea ice type, snow depth on sea ice, etc.

L122: Please define actor-related terminologies in this paper if this is an academic word. For example, rouge actor.

L202: Please add reference for Van Munster.

L258: Provide the full name of UN.

L436: Please provide the full name of SAAMI and SCoPEx.

L662: Remove word either forward or towards.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate the comments, and have attempted to address concerns as follows:

[General Comments]

It would be better to emphasize what is newly done by this research. Also, authors should clearly provide the definitions of key terminologies such as securitization and consequentialism.

Thank you for this comment. We have clarified points regarding securitization theory, and some aspects that allow a threat to become a security issue, whether actual or perceived in nature.

[Minor comments]

Figure 1: Line colors in the right panel are not well-matched with the colors in the legend box. For example, I cannot find deep violet color indicating the 2020-2021 period.

This has been corrected.

L75: km2 --> km2

This has been corrected.

Section 2: It would be better to introduce more observational (in situ or satellite remote sensing) studies that report current Arctic climate changes. Such as sea ice thickness, sea ice type, snow depth on sea ice, etc.

Based on this, we have opted to expand the language surrounding terminology to better address the range of effects, but have limited images to reduce that becoming a dominant component of the paper.

L122: Please define actor-related terminologies in this paper if this is an academic word. For example, rouge actor.

This has been shifted to broader terminology (e.g., independent actor) to avoid confusion or insinuate specific behaviors.

L202: Please add reference for Van Munster.

Corrected. This was cited later in the paragraph but it has been moved up.

L258: Provide the full name of UN.

Corrected.

L436: Please provide the full name of SAAMI and SCoPEx.

This has been addressed for SCoPEx. Regarding Saami, the Saami Council is the representative organization for the Saami (Sámi) people of Northern Europe and Scandinavia, and we have attempted to clarify.

L662: Remove word either forward or towards.

Done.