Start Date
2014 12:00 AM
Abstract
Changing temperature regimes inside a field of debris with year-round ice blocks are the base of this study in northern New Hampshire, USA. This unique ecosystem shows strong temperature anomalies in comparison to the surrounding area and ice, especially year-round ice, is not common below 700 m a.s.l. Yearly mean air temperatures can be strongly connected to the yearly ice level variations. Besides the analysis of the complete dataset of five years and a comparison of the impact of different seasons onto the ice considering precipitation, air temperature and special weather phenomena, the question about the use of talus & gorge ice caves as a climate indicator for a region has priority.
Included in
Analysis Of Selected Climatologically Observations Of Talus & Gorge Ice Caves In New England
Changing temperature regimes inside a field of debris with year-round ice blocks are the base of this study in northern New Hampshire, USA. This unique ecosystem shows strong temperature anomalies in comparison to the surrounding area and ice, especially year-round ice, is not common below 700 m a.s.l. Yearly mean air temperatures can be strongly connected to the yearly ice level variations. Besides the analysis of the complete dataset of five years and a comparison of the impact of different seasons onto the ice considering precipitation, air temperature and special weather phenomena, the question about the use of talus & gorge ice caves as a climate indicator for a region has priority.
Comments
Our comments and answers to the comments of the revision.
L1: Why use Kelvin units for precision, and Celsius units for resolution? They’re both on the same scale.
Our answer: For temperature differences like the precision of data loggers in climatology we use Kelvin. And the resolution of data loggers is not a temperature difference.
L2: It is unclear what this parenthetic reference means. What do frequency units have to do with dataloggers that measure temperature? What does “unknown” mean? If you don’t know the origin of information provided in the text, either find out or don’t cite “unknown”. I suggest either more information be provided, or just delete this obscure reference.
Our answer: First of all, we tried to use the conference guidelines for the references. The example in the guidelines is the following:
“Scientists close in on source of X-rays in lightning [Internet]. 2008. [Place of publication unknown]: Scienceblog.com; [updated 2008 July 16; cited 2008 July 29]. Available from: http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/scientists-close-source-x-rays-lightning-16904.html.“
We used “unknown” for the information we cannot provide, because of the example. That’s how we understood the guidelines, but we changed the citation a bit.
Just to let you know, the frequency of 433 MHz is used for the wireless communication between laptop and data logger.
L3: This very short paper contains only a very small amount of real data, which is shown in this graph. In the paragraphs immediately preceding this figure, the authors ask if there are any changes or developments over the five year period of record. Well, are there? It seems to me that having asked this question, some discussion of the data would be appropriate, even if it’s just a couple of sentences. For example, data loggers within the talus start out never exceeding the freezing point, but over the period of record temperatures in the talus sometimes go above freezing. It seems like that phenomenon would merit some kind of discussion.
The authors also bring up the topic of comparison of yearly cave ice dynamics with the annual temperature regime. Well, what about that comparison? The authors have five years of data, which presumably include at least qualitative observations of the cave ice. It seems to me that at least a sentence or two could be devoted to this subject.
Our answer: For us it isn’t a full manuscript, just an extended abstract with an exemplary data plot. We have 7 or 8 times as much data as shown in the plot, from the same location at different positions and other talus caves with ice in this area we can/will use in the talk.
But you are write that this part is still short for an abstract. We added some data discussion.
L4: That is a very good question. Do you have any answers, or at least some speculation as to the effect of the different seasons?
Our answer: Here as well we added some more discussions.
Best regards,
David & Andreas