Surface Temperature Trend Estimation over 12 Sites in Guinea Using 57 Years of Ground-Based Data

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

See attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please, the response to the reviewer's comments is in the attached PDF file. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

As a fundamental study, this manuscript presents a basic analysis about the temperature trend in Guinean with observations from 12 stations. The manuscript is well written with clearly presentation in methodology and results. It can be accepted with minor revision.

1. About the method, the reason why chooses the Trend-up model and MK model in this study should clarified.
2. In the analysis with the Trend-up model, the regression mainly considered the climate forcing. However, to my knowledge, the variation in surface cover condition also presents high impact on air temperature. In current study, this point is not yet considered. A more explanation should be added during the analysis.
3. Line 287, Z-score 7.8 can not be found in the manuscript.
4. From the P-value and Z-score in Mamou, it should not have the significant upward trend. Please check it.
5. The meaning of the two series in Figure 7 should be explained.

Author Response

Please, the response to the reviewer's comments is in the attached PDF file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Climate - MDPI 

Manuscript Number: ID 762986

Title: Surface Temperature trend estimation over 12 sites in Guinea using 57 years of ground-based data

As requested, I have reviewed the above-titled paper for potential publication in the Climate- MDPI Journal. I divided my comments in the sections presented as follows.

Contribution

This paper proposes the analysis of surface temperature across the Republic of Guinea situated south-western of West Africa based on 12 weather stations. The 12 weather stations are divided in four (4) regions: (i) Lower-Guinea - Conakry, Boke and Kindia; (ii) Middle-Guinea - Labe, Mamou and Koundara; (iii) Upper-Guinea -  Kankan, Siguiri and Faranah; (iv) Forest-Guinea – Nzerekore, Macenta and Kissidougou.

More specifically, the manuscript intends to evaluate mean monthly and annual/inter-annual  surface temperature variability focusing on trend analysis by means of Mann-Kendall tests (MK/SQ-MQ)  (section 2.3.2/3.2.3) based on monthly data retrieved from the aforementioned weather stations.

 Besides that, the manuscript establishes a modeling approach based on statistical linear regression to explain such variability with respect to climatological indexes, namely solar flux, Niño 3-4 index, tropical northern Atlantic index, Atlantic meridional mode index, Atlantic Niño index (section 2.3.1) (Equation 3 of the manuscript).

Accordingly to the authors, the proposed research work is original with respect to the application of the techniques employed taking into account the case study – Republic of Guinea.

 The authors also claim that the research results are able to support the evidence of  climate change due to mean monthly surface temperature variability and detected annual surface temperature trends in most of the 12 weather stations (except Macenta). The authors also evaluated that results confirm a good performance of the proposed methodology.

Please, see attached file for further comments. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Hi Dear,

Please, find the response to the reviewer's comments in the attached PDF file.

Regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I recommend the paper for publication. However, there is one, very critical, item that should be added. This is photographs of each of the 12 surface observing sites. Examples and reasons why this is so important are illustrated in 

Fall et al 2011: Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climate Reference Network temperatures and temperature trends. JGR-Atmosphere.

The paper under review would be stronger if the site quality could be explicitly shown with photos of the site, and views from the site in each cardinal direction. I do not feel it should be accepted until this final task is completed and added to the paper.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

We would like to thank you for your comments that's allowed us to improve the manuscript.

Sincerely yours

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Manuscript Number: ID 762986_V2

Title: Surface Temperature trend estimation over 12 sites in Guinea using 57 years of ground-based data

As requested, I have reviewed the second version of the above-titled paper for potential publication in the Climate- MDPI Journal.

Contribution

This paper proposes the analysis of surface temperature across the Republic of Guinea situated south-western of West Africa based on 12 weather stations. The 12 weather stations are divided in four (4) regions: (i) Lower-Guinea - Conakry, Boke and Kindia; (ii) Middle-Guinea - Labe, Mamou and Koundara; (iii) Upper-Guinea -  Kankan, Siguiri and Faranah; (iv) Forest-Guinea – Nzerekore, Macenta and Kissidougou.

More specifically, the manuscript intends to evaluate mean monthly and annual/inter-annual  surface temperature variability focusing on trend analysis by means of Mann-Kendall tests (MK/SQ-MQ)  (section 2.3.2/3.2.3) based on monthly data retrieved from the aforementioned weather stations.

 Besides that, the manuscript establishes a modeling approach based on statistical linear regression to explain such variability with respect to climatological indexes, namely solar flux, Niño 3-4 index, tropical northern Atlantic index, Atlantic meridional mode index, Atlantic Niño index (section 2.3.1) (Equation 3 of the manuscript).

Accordingly to the authors, the proposed research work is original with respect to the application of the techniques employed taking into account the case study – Republic of Guinea.

 The authors also claim that the research results are able to support the evidence of  climate change due to mean monthly surface temperature variability and detected annual surface temperature trends in most of the 12 weather stations (except Macenta). The authors also evaluated that results confirm a good performance of the proposed methodology.

In the revised version, some more datasets and analysis were conducted accordingly to previous comments in order to support the proposed analysis.

Please see the attached file. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

We would like to thank you for your comments that's allowed us to improve the manuscript. The responses are in the attached file.

Sincerely yours.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx