Into the Blue: An ERC Synergy Grant Resolving Past Arctic Greenhouse Climate States
, Stijn De Schepper 5,6, Monica Winsborrow 1, Juliane Müller 3,7, Mohamed M. Ezat 1 and Petra M. Langebroek 1,5Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe peer-reviewed manuscript "Into the Blue: An ERC Synergy Grant resolving past Arctic greenhouse climate states" by J. Knights and co-authors presents a research plan within the framework of the ERC Synergy Grant project: Into the Blue. The project is based on the use of Arctic geological archives of past warming and the application of climate modeling.
The subject of the manuscript is relevant and important in the context of modern climate change around the world and in the Arctic region in particular. The manuscript is of considerable interest both to narrow specialists in the field of climate modeling and to a wide range of readers of related research areas.
The introduction contains a sufficient amount of background information, a large amount of literature has been analyzed, and all literary references are relevant. The manuscript is written in good scientific language and is a complete scientific work. The drawings are well designed.
The submitted manuscript corresponds to the subject of the Challenges journal and can be published in its present form.
Author Response
The submitted manuscript corresponds to the subject of the Challenges journal and can be published in its present form.
Reply: Thank you for the positive feedback and your approval
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsReview of “Into the Blue: An ERC Synergy Grant resolving past Arctic greenhouse climate states”
Manuscript ref: 3694294
Author: Knies et al.
General evaluation:
While this manuscript is not a research article, it presents great ideas to advance our understanding of Arctic climate change, as an extended research proposal. In general, it is nicely written, with appropriate literature referenced. However, I feel the description of the value of this research proposal is exaggerated - paleo data rescue and new advancement of climate models are not strikingly new and exciting research idea. Even Albert Einstein's theory of relativity are not described using such shining vocabulary with strong argument, so please change the wording in the manuscript to a modest level.
The 2nd half of the introduction is tedious, which could have been punchier and logically more closely connected to the first half. The research questions and method strategy parts reads good and I don’t see any major problems. I would suggest it acceptable for publishing after minor revision.
Minor comments:
The fourth paragraph in the introduction seems like incorrectly placed as an individual paragraph, whereas it should be the last sentence of the previous paragraph.
Author Response
While this manuscript is not a research article, it presents great ideas to advance our understanding of Arctic climate change, as an extended research proposal. In general, it is nicely written, with appropriate literature referenced. However, I feel the description of the value of this research proposal is exaggerated - paleo data rescue and new advancement of climate models are not strikingly new and exciting research idea. Even Albert Einstein's theory of relativity are not described using such shining vocabulary with strong argument, so please change the wording in the manuscript to a modest level.
Reply: Well, we agree that we have used strong words. And we know, of course, that "paleo data rescue and new advancement of climate models" has been performed earlier. But, here we talk about the Arctic Ocean and the lack of knowledge both in the availability of (properly dated) proxy data and well-calibrated climate models for past interglacials, which has been widely appreciated including the European Research Council. The use of the vocabulary is may be strong, but appropriate. A first example of the impact of our novel proxy data - model approach will be seen in Science Advances tomorrow (04 June) led by the i2B core group where we show proxy evidence supported by climate simulations of a consistent Arctic sea ice cover over the past 750.000 years. I believe we will see more impact studies from the Arctic through our synergy grant in the future. I keep the wording as suggested. Also, none of the other referees have commented on it.
The 2nd half of the introduction is tedious, which could have been punchier and logically more closely connected to the first half. The research questions and method strategy parts reads good and I don’t see any major problems. I would suggest it acceptable for publishing after minor revision.
Reply: Yes, we agree and have changed, re-phrased, and deleted parts of the introduction. The changes in the introduction are highlighted in red.
The fourth paragraph in the introduction seems like incorrectly placed as an individual paragraph, whereas it should be the last sentence of the previous paragraph.
Reply: We have deleted this paragraph
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAuthors present the proposed research plan of the ERC Synergy Grant project Into the Blue, to uncover the global impacts of past ice-free Arctic conditions through new geological records and climate model advancements. In geology, data from the present is often used to describe what has happened in the past; however, in this project, the authors will use data from the past to predict changes that will occur in the future.
Small remarks:
Please insert mining of abbreviation.
In introduction 7-th line – please, can you insert the year from which the ice in Greenland is melting instead of 27 years?
Figure 1. Please insert explanation for GHG abbreviations in a) and b): SSP1-1.9 to SSP5-8.5. At the end of explanations are two dots. Please delete one.
5th page, after Figure 2. – “The Pleistocene interglacials (MIS 11c and 5e)” is underlined as “Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO)” at 6th page, while “The mid Pliocene Warm Period (mPWP)” isn’t, please standardize.
The mentioned references are newer and almost half were published in the last 5 years.
Selfcitation: Jochen Knies reference 20 (first author); Juliane Müller reference 63 (first author):
Gerrit Lohmann references: 11, 12 and 56 (first author);13, 46, 53, 57, 61, 62, 66, 67, 68 69, 71 (coautor). According to google scholar Gerrit Lohmann is one of authors on 976 articles. In this aricles 14 papers were self-cited, which represents 1.43% of his published works. As a head of the Working Group Paleoclimate Dynamics at the Alfred Wegener Institute and Earth system modelling, it is normal to have more published works that are self-cited.
Author Response
In introduction 7-th line – please, can you insert the year from which the ice in Greenland is melting instead of 27 years?
Reply: Yes, we have re-phrased this sentence and added a new reference (Rantanen et al. 2022)
Figure 1. Please insert explanation for GHG abbreviations in a) and b): SSP1-1.9 to SSP5-8.5. At the end of explanations are two dots. Please delete one
Reply: Yes, we added the abbreviations in the figure captions: "...five different greenhouse gas (GHG) scenarios (SSPs = Shared Socioeconomic Pathways)".
5th page, after Figure 2. – “The Pleistocene interglacials (MIS 11c and 5e)” is underlined as “Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO)” at 6th page, while “The mid Pliocene Warm Period (mPWP)” isn’t, please standardize.
Reply: corrected
The mentioned references are newer and almost half were published in the last 5 years
Reply: I am not sure how to handle this comment. We have not changed anything in the reference list except one replacement: Rantanen et al. 2022 (Nature Communication Earth & Environment) instead of Chen et al. 2017 (Nature Climate Change).
