Water exchange between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait

Zavialov, Ivan; Osadchiev, Alexander; Sedakov, Roman; Barnier, Bernard; Molines, Jean-Marc; Belokopytov, Vladimir

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-15-2020

Articles | Volume 16, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-15-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-15-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 1

Research article

|

07 Jan 2020

Research article |

| 07 Jan 2020

Water exchange between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait

Ivan Zavialov, Alexander Osadchiev, Roman Sedakov, Bernard Barnier, Jean-Marc Molines, and Vladimir Belokopytov

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Final revised paper (published on 07 Jan 2020)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 11 Feb 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Mar 2019
- AC1: 'Reply to Reviewer #1', Ivan Zavialov, 07 Jun 2019
RC2: 'review', Anonymous Referee #2, 29 Mar 2019
- RC3: 'review # 2', Anonymous Referee #2, 29 Mar 2019
  - AC2: 'Reply to Reviewer #2', Ivan Zavialov, 07 Jun 2019
- AC2: 'Reply to Reviewer #2', Ivan Zavialov, 07 Jun 2019
RC4: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #3, 02 Apr 2019
- AC3: 'Reply to Reviewer #3', Ivan Zavialov, 07 Jun 2019

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Ivan Zavialov on behalf of the Authors (12 Jun 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (29 Jun 2019) by Markus Meier

RR by Andrei Zatsepin (13 Jul 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Suggestions for revision
1. In Section 2 «Study Area», too much attention is paid to the physical-geographical description of the Sea of Azov, which is not related to the main objectives of the paper. This part is proposed to be reduced somewhat.
2. Section 5 “Discussion and Conclusions” does not consider the impact of the Black Sea dynamics on the AP propagation distance along the Crimean Peninsula. However, in case with the developed Rim current, the most distant propagation of AP along the coast can be expected, and in case with the presence of a mesoscale anticyclonic eddy near the Kerch strait - the least distant propagation of AP can be expected. This issue should be considered.
3. On page 8 it is indicated that “stable density gradient that exists along the strait doesn’t exceed 6 kg/m3”. An error is made here, since the indicated value characterizes not the density gradient along the strait, but the density difference, or jump along it.
4. On page 10, the “wind forcing index” is introduced, which is the product of the average speed of the northeast wind and the duration of its action. The authors are looking for the dependences of the AP area in the Black Sea and the AP propagation distance along the coast of Crimea from this parameter. However, the index, which is the product of the wind stress and its duration, should have a more clear physical value, because the wind stress (not its speed!) determines the Ekman transport, which creates a barotropic pressure gradient along the strait. Authors should find the dependencies of the above mentioned characteristics of the AP on this parameter.
5. The caption under fig. 5 indicates that the various graphs show the gradients of different characteristics along the Kerch Strait. In fact, they are not gradients but jumps, or differences along the strait.

Referee Report: PDF

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RR by Markus Meier (16 Aug 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Dear authors

This is an editor review because I had problems to find reviewers for the second round of revisions. I apologize for the delay. Although the latest version of the manuscript has considerably improved, major revisions are still necessary. It was a very good idea to add the results of a numerical circulation model to the analysis of satellite images. However, the horizontal resolution with 6.75 km is rather coarse because I assume that the baroclinic Rossby radius is very often below 20 km. In addition, the Kerch Strait is only 3 km narrow prohibiting a proper representation of the exchange flow through the strait. Further, a reference introducing this new model setup is not provided. Hence, I would like to see evaluation figures at least in the attachment, e.g. mean temperature and salinity profiles for 1992-2017.

Please improve the language. A few examples are listed below. The usage of articles should be checked by a native English speaking person.

Best wishes
Markus Meier
(Topic Editor Ocean Science)

Minor comments:
P1 L11 “flow into” instead of “inflow!
P1 L20 “wind-governed”
P2 L3 “with the more saline Black Sea”
P2 L22 “on the coastal ecosystem”
P2 L27 “the water exchange”
P2 L28 “and the Black Sea”
P1 L10, P2 L4, P2 L31, P3 L31, P4 L27, P5 L2 “brackish water” instead of “freshened water”
P3 L24 “than during the rest of the year”
P4 L6 “one order of magnitude”
P5 L20 “data were obtained”
P6 L8 “than the difference”
P6 L23 “based on satellite data”
P6 L31 “based on CHL-a gradients”
P8 L17 “does not show”
P9 L3 “the relation”
P9 L7 “northeasterly”
P9 L8 “the relation”
P9 L16 “An A1 event causes …”
P9 L26: what do you mean? “are neither accompanied by … nor low surface salinity”
P9 L32 “northeasterly wind”

Fig. 3: impossible to see the circulation in the Azov Sea
Fig. 4: please connect the circles with a curve
Fig. 5: please provide correlation coefficients instead of the curves, i.e. delete Fig. 5

P12 L26 “In contrast, the volume ….”
P12 L27 “wet periods” instead of “freshet periods”
P13 L1 “with a wind-forcing index T_v exceeding 500 km”

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (16 Aug 2019) by Markus Meier

AR by Ivan Zavialov on behalf of the Authors (31 Oct 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (23 Nov 2019) by Markus Meier

AR by Ivan Zavialov on behalf of the Authors (24 Nov 2019) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

This study is focused on water exchange between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. The Sea of Azov is a small freshened sea that receives a large freshwater discharge and, therefore, can be regarded as a large river estuary connected by narrow Kerch Strait with the Black Sea. In this work we show that water transport through the Kerch Strait is governed by wind forcing and does not depend on the river discharge rate to the Sea of Azov on an intra-annual timescale.