Climate Change Effects upon Pasture in the Alps: The Case of Valtellina Valley, Italy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In the presented manuscript, the authors carry out a detailed study of climate change effects on pasture in the Italian Alps. They compare pasture yield numbers from their own model simulations with statistical survey data as well as in situ references, and carry out simulations of pasture productivity trends under different climate change scenarios.

I think the study is relevant and overall well presented. My main suggestion is to improve the presentation of results in order to make them easier understandable to the readers, regarding 1) revision of figures/tables and figure/table contents, and 2) reduction of the number of used abbreviations (Z1, Z2, P1, P2, CR...) or usage of something more intuitive. Please see my detailed comments below (most of them just minor suggestions and requests for clarification).

 

Abstract

1. Which agroclimatic indices? consider adding "agroclimatic indices related to growing season parameters, water availability, evapotranspiration..." or similar

 

Introduction

2. "During 1990-2010, ca 17%... abandoned". Maybe move this sentence back to the end of the paragraph (...and typical landscapes).

3. "In the near future, climate change is likely to have...": "is likely": is this based on an IPCC report? Then add the source - otherwise, consider checking IPCC reports. Impact on Alpine mountain ranges may even be highly likely or certain?

4. What exactly is meant by "uplift of Alpine pasture species"?

5. What is meant by "aiding brain storming for adaptation"? Consider rephrasing.

6. "Valtellina, an Alpine valley located in Norther Italy." - n missing

7. "To do so, we coupled Poli-Hydro, an already published hydrological model for the simulation of the hydrological cycle in high-altitude catchments, with Poli-Pasture" - as there is no reference given, I wondered if this is the first publication about Poli-Pasture? This introduction of a new module could be highlighted even more.

8. Last sentence ("reported in Section 2") - not really needed, or follow by what the other sections cover (e.g. explanation of poli-hydro and -pasture in methods, results first for present period, then for future, then for agroclim. indicators) - so it's clear to the reader what to expect.

 

Case study area

9. Figure 1 and text: what does AWS stand for? - add somewhere

10. Figure 1: where does pasture area come from? Corine land cover? - add somewhere

11. Add definitions of Z1 and Z2

 

Data & methods

12. Fig. 2: What does S(t) stand for? - add somewhere

13. Last paragraph of 3.1: "lower than the mean T of Sept. 30" - of the respective year, or an average of Sept. 30 temepratures of all years? Explain here in a bit more detail how this choice was made.

14. Table 1: you could add that the locations of the stations are shown in Fig. 1

15. 3.4 (definition of Z1 and Z2): I find it counterintuitive that Z1 refers to higher altitudes than Z2. Maybe consider turning that around? Or consider using different names, e.g. HighAlt and LowAlt.

16. 3.4 (such changes might have been influenced by social and economic factors...): Please elaborate/rephrase, right now not really clear.

17. 3.5: Consider adding a short explanation of how AR5 and AR6 differ. E.g., does AR6 predict stronger T increase? -> exactly what is now mentioned in Appendix.

18. Explain "CR period"

 

Results

19. In general: The results could be presented in a clearer way, e.g. in section 4.1 by clearly separating paragraphs on performance with respect to 1) ISTAT, 2) in situ data, and always refer to both Y and Yy. And accordingly, 1) uncertainties due to the used model, 2) uncertainties in ISTAT, 3) uncertainties in in situ data (general structure of the text in 4.1). Right now, everything seems a bit mixed, and fig 3 / table 4 only cover parts of what is mentioned in the text (only Y in Fig 3 and Table 4, only ISTAT in Table 4). Some detailed comments below:

20. Can you add somewhere how you selected your reference periods/definition of "present period"? Why are there differences between chapters and figures (2003-2019, 2006-2019, 2006-2017...)?

21. Fig. 3: Why only Y shown, not Yy?

22. Table 4: can you add the metrics for Yy (total productivity), and maybe also for the comparison with in situ data from 2003, 2004, 2019?

23. How can poor pastures contribute to the reduction of Y after 2013, if they only appear in 2013?

24. "...only for permanent grassland and other pastures (not shown)" - Why not? This could make your point stronger, as  model results and ISTAT data are quite different in Fig. 3.

25. I think it's very interesting and speaks for the quality of your model that the simulations fit so well to the in situ data in 2004 and 2019. You could highlight this even more, e.g. by adding the metrics to table 4

26. Figure 4: I assume these are modelled Y and Yy, not from ISTAT? Please add.

27. 4.2: Here I was wondering why you use Z1 and Z2 if anyway most results are presented either in total (no discrimination between altitude bands) or for several altitude bands, not only the two described by Z1 and Z2. Taking out Z1 and Z2 would take out complexity and perhaps make the results section better understandable.

28. In general, there are a lot of different abbreviations. Could you e.g. always add P1 (2041-2050) and P2(2091-2100) in text + figures to make it easier for readers?

29. Figure 5: Why is the reference period 2006-2017 here?

30. Figure 6: It takes quite some time to understand the (in principle very nice and simple) figure due to all the abbreviations. You could improve the figure in different ways - some suggestions: *add units to y-axis, not in title. *write "RCP/SSP 2.6" instead of "26", etc. *Use e.g. golden color for P1 (mid-century, moderate warming) and red for P2 (end of century, strong warming)

31. Consider showing all 8 AIs in Fig. 6. At least I myself prefer looking at figures and being able to interpret them myself, in addition to the authors' description in the text.

 

Discussion

32. "5.1" - no need of a subsection if there is no 5.2. But consider using subsections - e.g. one for all model-related discussion, one related to the choice of species, one related to AR5/AR6... (i.e. just a restructuring of the discussion as it is now)

33. "presence of the 10.25% in July..." - you could move this to an earlier section (e.g. 3.4, there I was looking for exactly these percentages)

 

I hope the authors find my comments helpful.

Author Response

We upload a Word document with the response to the reviewer

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is written well but

1. it needs clear setup of clear research

 gaps and new idea added to the scientific

community. 

2. Set clear methedological framework for the study 

Author Response

We upload a Word document with response to the reviewer

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf