Phase synchronisation in the Kuroshio Current System

Klose, Ann Kristin; van Westen, René M.; Dijkstra, Henk A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-435-2020

Articles | Volume 16, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-435-2020

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-16-435-2020

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

Articles | Volume 16, issue 2

Research article

|

17 Apr 2020

Research article |

| 17 Apr 2020

Phase synchronisation in the Kuroshio Current System

Ann Kristin Klose, René M. van Westen, and Henk A. Dijkstra

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Final revised paper (published on 17 Apr 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 04 Sep 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of the paper "Phase Synchronisation in the Kuroshio Current System"', Anonymous Referee #1, 10 Sep 2019
- AC1: 'Response to RC1', Henk A. Dijkstra, 28 Nov 2019
RC2: 'Comments for the authors', Anonymous Referee #2, 15 Oct 2019
- AC2: 'Response to RC2', Henk A. Dijkstra, 28 Nov 2019

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Henk A. Dijkstra on behalf of the Authors (20 Dec 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (20 Jan 2020) by Anna Rubio

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (02 Feb 2020)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (07 Feb 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I would like to thank the authors for improving the paper substantially, and clarifying it over most issues I raised. I have a suggestion about the review process: please highlight (e.g. in color or bold) the updates made to the manuscript during this process. It is difficult to find the corrections when they are not highlighted in the revised paper (nor explicitly given in the “response” document).

I indicate at the end of this document a few minor remarks to be addressed; and I still find that 2 main issues require clarification before the paper is suitable for publication.

MAJOR REMARKS

1) section 3.3 is now clearer: Figure 6 confirms that zonal velocity and meridional isopycnal slopes covary strongly within the jet, although it was expected from geostrophy. However, this section remains unprecise, in particular about the nature and role of the “rectification“ process, mentioned in page 16 (lines 1 and 3). For instance, the expression “rectification effects due to barotropic instabilities” is a bit confusing and sounds contradictory, since rectification (according to e.g. Qui and Chen, 2010) induces a EKE—to-MKE flux while barotropic instability indices the opposite flux. Could you please clarify the role and nature of “rectification” in the suggested dynamical scenario?

In addition, I had asked in my previous review (comment #21) “Why only barotropic instability is mentioned?“ in this section, but it turns out that baroclinic instability is still not mentioned there (despite its important role in producing mesoscale eddies whose EKE, in turn, are then thought to rectify the jet).

In summary, a more careful explanation of the processes that control [1] the Kuroshio intrinsic variability, and [2] its modulation by the atmosphere (which is the subject of the paper) would clearly improve the paper. It would be very useful in this exercise to consolidate the evidence that supports these statements, and if the suggested dynamical scenario(s) differ from the published literature.

2) About my former comment #25 about the “drop in IPD index in years 240-250”. The authors have not responded to my first sentence, where I said that I cannot see any drop (although I may not look at the right plot?). Please make sure that the drop occurs, clarify when and in which figure it can be seen, and try to reformulate the subsequent argument in the paper.

MINOR REMARKS

Page 3 line 10 : …compared to the climatological simulation

page 10, legend fig 3 : …obtained from the projection

page 12 line 13 : …which is considerably smaller than the variance explained by the first PC…

end of page 12 and beginning of page 13 : shouldn’t it read : “…detected from observations.” ?

page 14 line 5 : … zonal velocity and density …

page 14 lines 7-8 : it seems to me that years 174-176 and 181-183 correspond to contracted and elongated states, respectively. Am I right ?

Page 14 line 9 : Relatively warm…

Page 14 line 30 : We interpret the results in Figures 6 and 7…

About my former comment #10 about the 29.6% explained variance : the authors respond that a remark will be made “referring to an observational study”, but I could not find anything about this in the revised version.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (17 Feb 2020) by Anna Rubio

AR by Henk A. Dijkstra on behalf of the Authors (25 Feb 2020)

ED: Publish as is (09 Mar 2020) by Anna Rubio

AR by Henk A. Dijkstra on behalf of the Authors (13 Mar 2020) Manuscript