Area-averaged evapotranspiration over a heterogeneous land surface: aggregation of multi-point EC flux measurements with a high-resolution land-cover map and footprint analysis

Xu, Feinan; Wang, Weizhen; Wang, Jiemin; Xu, Ziwei; Qi, Yuan; Wu, Yueru

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-4037-2017

Articles | Volume 21, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-4037-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-4037-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 8

Research article

|

10 Aug 2017

Research article |

| 10 Aug 2017

Area-averaged evapotranspiration over a heterogeneous land surface: aggregation of multi-point EC flux measurements with a high-resolution land-cover map and footprint analysis

Feinan Xu, Weizhen Wang, Jiemin Wang, Ziwei Xu, Yuan Qi, and Yueru Wu

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Final revised paper (published on 10 Aug 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 29 Nov 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Comments on HESS-2016-602', Anonymous Referee #1, 16 Dec 2016
- AC1: 'Response to Referee#1’s comments on “Area-averaged evapotranspiration over a heterogeneous land surface: Aggregation of multi-point EC flux measurements with high-resolution land-cover map and footprint analysis” by F. Xu et al.', Feinan Xu, 19 Jan 2017
RC2: 'Review comments to "Area-averaged evapotranspiration over a heterogeneous land surface: Aggregation of multi-point EC flux measurements with high-resolution land-cover map and footprint analysis"', Anonymous Referee #2, 29 Dec 2016
- AC2: 'Response to Referee#2’s comments on “Area-averaged evapotranspiration over a heterogeneous land surface: Aggregation of multi-point EC flux measurements with high-resolution land-cover map and footprint analysis” by F. Xu et al.', Feinan Xu, 19 Jan 2017
RC3: 'Comments on HESS-2016-602', Anonymous Referee #3, 31 Dec 2016
- AC3: 'Response to Referee#3’s comments on “Area-averaged evapotranspiration over a heterogeneous land surface: Aggregation of multi-point EC flux measurements with high-resolution land-cover map and footprint analysis” by F. Xu et al.', Feinan Xu, 19 Jan 2017
RC4: 'Interesting data set - the paper needs significant improvements', Thomas Foken, 17 Jan 2017
- AC4: 'Response to Prof. Dr. Thomas Foken’s comments on “Area-averaged evapotranspiration over a heterogeneous land surface: Aggregation of multi-point EC flux measurements with high-resolution land-cover map and footprint analysis” by F. Xu et al.', Feinan Xu, 12 Feb 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by Editor and Referees) (24 Feb 2017) by Bob Su

AR by Feinan Xu on behalf of the Authors (08 Mar 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by Editor and Referees) (25 Mar 2017) by Bob Su

AR by Feinan Xu on behalf of the Authors (26 Mar 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (03 Apr 2017) by Bob Su

RR by Thomas Foken (09 Apr 2017)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (10 Apr 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Overall assessment:
The authors made substantial revisions to their manuscript. The revision is yet insufficient in several points. First, the present version failed to address the errors and their propagation, but simply stated that the errors in EC were corrected or minimized, done in published papers. It is unclear about the errors in the values aggregated from the area-averaged flux scheme they proposed. Second, the authors did not compare the scheme they proposed with those existing. It is hard to say the proposed scheme performed better than the others did. Third, the daily ET maps did not contribute to the central topics of the paper. Referee #3 also gave the similar comment.

Specific comments:
Line 8: avoid use of “etc.” in research paper. I would not check grammatical problems. The manuscript requires a professional English editing.
Page 5 line 3: If you prefer to map daily ET over the whole study area. The daily values need validation. Otherwise, it is superficial.
Section 2.2: in the cases that errors in EC and LAS were clarified in published papers, please state it here in brief. Given the data is not error free, combined errors in aggregated flux should be addressed.
Page 25 line 10: the scheme relies on classification accuracy of land cover (inter-cover errors). It is also subject to seasonal change of any cover. Does it mean the regression coefficients are seasonally dependent?
Page 29 line 22 –page 30 line 19: Here compared area-averaged EC and LAS fluxes. The authors attributed the significant differences to residential areas. The reviewer agrees that residential areas are one of possible error sources, but this is not the whole story. As commented by referee#3, it is very necessary to clarify uncertainty in the EC and LAS measurements.
Section 4.4: Given that the large LAS-EC flux difference was not explained quantitatively, even for half an hour data, it is not rigorous to map the daily ET for the whole area.

Referee Report: PDF

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RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (02 May 2017)

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by Editor and Referees) (02 May 2017) by Bob Su

AR by Feinan Xu on behalf of the Authors (13 Jun 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (06 Jul 2017) by Bob Su