Mesoscale Eddy Chain Structures in the Black Sea and Their Interaction with River Plumes: Numerical Modeling and Satellite Observations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The purpose of this review is to provide constructive feedback on the paper. While the potential for interesting results is evident, the organization and presentation of the material in the current form poses significant challenges for the reader.

To begin with, the introduction appears to contain a significant amount of data that would be more appropriately presented in the results section. This hinders the reader's ability to identify the scope and purpose of the study clearly. Additionally, the overuse of abbreviations makes the text hard to read. The order in which data maps are presented also seems inconsistent, as they are introduced prior to properly describing the data.

Furthermore, the varying line spacing on different pages presents difficulties for the review process. I also suggest that the "materials and methods" section be renamed to "data and methods," as a "materials" list does not apply to the study. Finally, it may be beneficial to consider converting the subsections in the "results" section into sections to improve the paper's overall clarity and cohesiveness.

In summary, while the potential for interesting results is present in this submission, the current organization and presentation of the material detract from its readability and impact. Therefore, the authors should consider restructuring the text and conducting thorough proofreading to address these issues before resubmitting the paper for scientific consideration.

 

It is essential to conduct a thorough proofreading before the peer-review process to ensure the clarity and accuracy of the content in a scientific paper. Any errors or inconsistencies in the text can distract from the research and findings, potentially compromising the validity of the work. This will allow me to focus on the paper's scientific content during the review process and provide more valuable feedback to the authors.


Some comments about the first part:

- I would avoid using BS as an abbreviation for being the same as for a bad word. Anyway, there are some places you don't use this abbreviation.

- Is there a reason why "world ocean" is capitalized?

- Always use comma before "which".

- L42: Are you investigating other type of anticyclones? If not, I would avoid adding another acronym and simply mention that hereafter you will refer to them simply as anticyclones.

- L44: As far as I am concerned, plankton is just another word for floating organisms. Can you explain why are you considering these different terms?

- L59-62: This is a more general comment. I think it would be better to start this paragraph in a different way. Maybe starting by saying that among all near-shore anticyclones, some are generated by the interaction with topography and then explain how these anticyclones differ from the others.

- L63: Frequently I see you mentioning "instabilities" as a general term. As there are several types of flow instabilities that use different source of energy, I believe it would be better to mention, if already previously studied, what kind of instability you are talking about.

- L64: It is unclear if you want to mention topographically-driven anticyclones or eddies in general as you have stated that TGE are a particular type of NAE.

- L75-77: Elaborated by who? It is not clear if you are mentioning a previous study or the current study. I would avoid using too much passive voice.

- L77: You haven't even introduced the DieCAST model.

- L80: I know this is not the case, but the way it is written it sounds like you are repeating the same analysis from your previous work. My suggestion is that you better explain what are the gaps in the literature that you intend to fill. 

 

- L96-100: I don't think you need all of this. You can simply mention your results and reference the figure. This page may help with this suggestion 

https://brushingupscience.com/2019/11/04/dont-start-paragraphs-with-figure-n-shows/

Example: "Satellite observations demonstrate a large anticyclone adjoining the Caucasian coast (Figure 1 A,C)."

- L112-113: I think figure captions should be self-explanatory. Avoid referencing the explanation of a figure in the text.

- L116: Shaded or shed?

- Fig1 and 2 are results, not introduction.

 

Author Response

Response to Reviever#1

 

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you very much for your notes. Below, there are responses (distinguished in italic) to your remarks and suggestions

 

The purpose of this review is to provide constructive feedback on the paper. While the potential for interesting results is evident, the organization and presentation of the material in the current form poses significant challenges for the reader.

These are very constructive suggestions.

 

To begin with, the introduction appears to contain a significant amount of data that would be more appropriately presented in the results section. This hinders the reader's ability to identify the scope and purpose of the study clearly. Additionally, the overuse of abbreviations makes the text hard to read. The order in which data maps are presented also seems inconsistent, as they are introduced prior to properly describing the data.

Data depicted in Figure 1 and 2 are not our results but they are just to support the introduction by illustration of the theme of study

 

Furthermore, the varying line spacing on different pages presents difficulties for the review process. I also suggest that the "materials and methods" section be renamed to "data and methods," as a "materials" list does not apply to the study. Finally, it may be beneficial to consider converting the subsections in the "results" section into sections to improve the paper's overall clarity and cohesiveness.

We agree with these suggestions "materials and methods" was renamed in "data and methods"

 

In summary, while the potential for interesting results is present in this submission, the current organization and presentation of the material detract from its readability and impact. Therefore, the authors should consider restructuring the text and conducting thorough proofreading to address these issues before resubmitting the paper for scientific consideration.

We agree. Usually in the past we used, at final step, www.Scribendi.com service to improve English or we will use mdpi.com/authors/english.

Some comments about the first part:

- I would avoid using BS as an abbreviation for being the same as for a bad word. Anyway, there are some places you don't use this abbreviation.

Thanks. It was changed to the Black Sea

 

- Is there a reason why "world ocean" is capitalized?

It was changed.

 

- Always use comma before "which".
Checked and fixed this throughout the text

- L42: Are you investigating other type of anticyclones? If not, I would avoid adding another acronym and simply mention that hereafter you will refer to them simply as anticyclones.
In the Black Sea, near-shore anticyclones are a particular type of anticyclones and usually, it is always underlined.

- L44: As far as I am concerned, plankton is just another word for floating organisms. Can you explain why are you considering these different terms?

Unlike primary production, some species of floating organisms, e.g., larvae and fish eggs can move themselves

- L59-62: This is a more general comment. I think it would be better to start this paragraph in a different way. Maybe starting by saying that among all near-shore anticyclones, some are generated by the interaction with topography and then explain how these anticyclones differ from the others.

It is a good idea to compare differences between TGE and eddies resulting from, say, baroclinic instability. It is worth to work on it accomplish the study on this aspect in future.

 

- L63: Frequently I see you mentioning "instabilities" as a general term. As there are several types of flow instabilities that use different source of energy, I believe it would be better to mention, if already previously studied, what kind of instability you are talking about.

It is a good question. We considered a complex problem of generation of mesoscale (anticyclonic) eddies resulting from the interaction the Rim Current with bottom topography. We considered the region of the Pitsunda where underwater ridge stretched from the coast. Since the Rim Current approaches the shore very closely, both kinds of instability: barotropic and baroclinic plays considerable roles. Herewith, as we showed in [39], slope and Burger number allow evaluating shedding frequency, which was equals to about 5-30 days.

 

- L64: It is unclear if you want to mention topographically-driven anticyclones or eddies in general as you have stated that TGE are a particular type of NAE.

In our case, TGEs are particular sort of NAEs occurring near shore in a result of the interaction of the Rim Current with bottom irregularities stretching off the shore.

 

- L75-77: Elaborated by who? It is not clear if you are mentioning a previous study or the current study.

In this part, the sentences were changed to:

To predict the effect of mesoscale eddies on the transport of fluvial water and river-borne material across the shelf, different techniques based on coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian approaches are widely used. In our recent study [39], we applied the DieCAST hydrodynamic ocean model and the Lagrangian particle tracking model (LPTM) to predict the influence of meandering of RC, generation and behavior of anticyclonic eddies on spreading and mixing of river plumes. The same approach is applied in the present work.

 

- L77: You haven't even introduced the DieCAST model.

Here are some comments on this point:

David Dietrich elaborated 5 nautical miles DieCAST Ocean Model. In 2006, together with D. Dietrich, K. Korotenko modified this model for the Black Sea with a horizontal resolution of 2 nautical miles (Korotenko et al., 2010).

 

- L80: I know this is not the case, but the way it is written it sounds like you are repeating the same analysis from your previous work. My suggestion is that you better explain what are the gaps in the literature that you intend to fill. 

Yes, some part this work is referred to [39] to compare present results on eddy-chains obtained with those on isolated eddy obtained preliminary. It is a good suggestion to emphasize a gap in studies of a specific issues associated with TGE in the Black Sea.

 

- L96-100: I don't think you need all of this. You can simply mention your results and reference the figure. This page may help with this suggestion  

https://brushingupscience.com/2019/11/04/dont-start-paragraphs-with-figure-n-shows/

Example: "Satellite observations demonstrate a large anticyclone adjoining the Caucasian coast (Figure 1 A,C)."

It is very useful site to follow

 

- L112-113: I think figure captions should be self-explanatory. Avoid referencing the explanation of a figure in the text.

This rule is very useful.

 

- L116: Shaded or shed?

Sure, must be “shed”

 

- Fig1 and 2 are results, not introduction.

We preferred to place them in introduction because that are not our results but they are good to be used for the introducing a subject of investigation.

Again, thank you very much for the valuable suggestions improved the paper and many of them are to be used in our future study

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript presented by Konstantin Korotenko, Alexander Osadchiev, and Vasiliy Andreevich Melnikov describes the generation and evolution of the eddy chains and studies their interaction with the river plumes along the Caucasian coast using a 3-D low-dissipation model (DieCAST) coupled with the LPTM model and some satellite images. The authors also mentioned these eddy chains, including the cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies, and how they entrain many river plumes. Overall, the manuscript is written logically but very wordy, and readers seem challenged to follow and understand. 

 

General comments:

1.  A lot of English grammar mistakes are found in the manuscript. The manuscript needs comprehensive editing by a first-language English speaker with a subject specialist background. 
2. In Figure 1, the word or marks in the figure is too small to see since four panels are compacted into one page. For example, marks a and b appear in the figure caption but cannot be seen in Figure 1D, and the text string in other panels is also the same as in Figure 1D, so Figure 1 should be separated into two diagrams. 
3. In Figure 1, in line 108, the statement "(C) chlorophyll-a, and (D) visible RGB composite on 4 June 2014 at 11:00 GMT" in the figure caption is not consistent with Figures 1A, 1B, and 1C because the date marks in these figures are marked on JUN 2017, not 2014. Please check them.
4.  I think the manuscript has a lot of extensions from REFERENCE 39. 

            Many sentences are repeated many times and are too wordy in the introduction. Therefore, I suggest that the introduction, Pages 1 - 7, should be concisely reduced to pages 1 or 2.    

     5. In References, the references should also be concisely reduced to half of the present references.    

     6. In theory, the geographical location should be marked in the first diagram, which introduces the study area. Still, there are many locations in the article that are not marked, such as Pitsunda-Kodor ridge, etc.

      7. In Figures 5 & 7, the situation is similar to Item 2.

      8. In line 317, the term"BAE" is not defined. Please check it.

      9. In lines 779-879, Appendix A is not needed, if necessary, referring to REFERENCE 39.  

Comments for author File: Comments.doc

Author Response

Response to Reviever#2  

 

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you very much for your notes and remarks. Below, there are responses (distinguished in italic and blue ink) to your remarks and suggestions

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors also mentioned these eddy chains, including the cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies, and how they entrain many river plumes. Overall, the manuscript is written logically but very wordy, and readers seem challenged to follow and understand. 

Thank you for this remark.

 

General comments:

1.  A lot of English grammar mistakes are found in the manuscript. The manuscript needs comprehensive editing by a first-language English speaker with a subject specialist background.

Agree. We plan to use https://www.scribendi.com or https://www.mdpi.com/authors/english services or on final stage before the publication

 

1. In Figure 1, the word or marks in the figure is too small to see since four panels are compacted into one page. For example, marks a and b appear in the figure caption but cannot be seen in Figure 1D, and the text string in other panels is also the same as in Figure 1D, so Figure 1 should be separated into two diagrams. 

Figure 1D was improved.

 

1. In Figure 1, in line 108, the statement "(C) chlorophyll-a, and (D) visible RGB composite on 4 June 2014 at 11:00 GMT" in the figure caption is not consistent with Figures 1A, 1B, and 1C because the date marks in these figures are marked on JUN 2017, not 2014. Please check them.

The date in the caption was changed

 

1.  I think the manuscript has a lot of extensions from REFERENCE 39. 

This work is a continuation from [39] and aimed to compare the formation of eddy-chains and their effect with those analyzed for isolated eddies in [39].

 

            Many sentences are repeated many times and are too wordy in the introduction. Therefore, I suggest that the introduction, Pages 1 - 7, should be concisely reduced to pages 1 or 2.    

We reduced the introduction and left only that was necessary.

     

5. In References, the references should also be concisely reduced to half of the present references. 

 The list of references was reduced.

     

6. In theory, the geographical location should be marked in the first diagram, which introduces the study area. Still, there are many locations in the article that are not marked, such as Pitsunda-Kodor ridge, etc.

The Pitsunda Ridge was pointed out in Figure 3.

 

7. In Figures 5 & 7, the situation is similar to Item 2.

High resolution Figures 5 and 7 in PNG format were provided on supplements to the paper

 

8. In line 317, the term "BAE" is not defined. Please check it.

Now, it was defined

9. In lines 779-879, Appendix A is not needed, if necessary, referring to REFERENCE 39.  

Descriptive parts of FT and WT were withdrawn.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Please find a pdf file that contains the review comments.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviever#3

 

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you very much for your extremely useful remarks! Below, there are responses (distinguished in italic and blue ink) to your remarks and suggestions

 

 

Comments

 

This paper titled “Mesoscale eddy-chain structures in the Black Sea and their interaction with river

plumes: Numerical modeling and satellite observations” focuses on the generation and evolution of

eddy chains (EC) and their interaction with river plumes along the Northeast Caucasian coast in the

Black Sea. The authors seem to shed light on the behaviors of ECs using numerical modeling and

satellite imagery. However, in my opinion, it requires a major revision before ready for publication.

 

- I think Introduction seems to be too long. It needs to be written shorter and more concisely based on

recently published references. I’d like to suggest that authors should mainly focus on ‘mesoscale

eddy-chain structures’ as described in the title.

The paper, in our opinion, looks concisely and focused only on mesoscale eddies. We just extended our narratives to describe the comparison of eddy-chain and isolated eddies. 

 

- The authors need to pay attention to organizing sectional structure in the manuscript. My comments

about this are below:

1) ‘2. Study Area’ would be included into ‘Introduction’ or methodology section.

We distinguished Study Area in separate section to emphasize differences the areas of work [39]

 

2) Some parts in section 4.1 would be ‘introduction and method’ rather than ‘result’.

We partly agree with this. We were going to create the special subsection 4.1 as a preamble to the main section 4.2 presented results.

 

3) Please move the results from LPTM (in Discussion) and spectral analysis methods (in Appendix)

to the Result section.

We preferred to distinguish the results obtained with LPTM in a separate section to compare them with previous work [39]. The spectral methods we placed in Appendix in order not to interrupt the narrative text.

 

4) Some discussions were described in Conclusion. Thus ‘Discussion and Conclusion’ would be

better.

Agree with this

 

- The authors used the LPTM to investigate the interaction between ECs and river plumes. I suggest

for the authors to run Die2BS additionally without river forcing. From the difference in the eddy chain

behaviors between the results with and without rivers, the authors could find the interaction between

ECs and river plumes more clearly.

It is a good idea to continue work in this aspect

 

- I suggest that the authors use MODIS level 2 daily chl-a data with a 1-kim resolution to detect

mesoscale eddy chains in the study area if possible. It is hard to recognize the EC structures in

MODIS Aqua optical satellite images shown in Figure 6.

Unfortunately, we have not a sequence of high resolution images of MODIS level 2 daily chl-a data with a 1-kim.

 

- English writing should be improved.

At final stage, we are going to use www.scribendi.com or www.mdpi.com/authors/english to improve English

 

For more detail, please see the specific comments below.

 

Specific comments are as follows.

 

Lines 159-160: “… the ratio b …” а … the ratio b/a …; “T = b / Ue ” а “T = b / (a Ue )”

This will be consistent with ‘a’ and ‘b’ used in the previous paragraph (line 146-149).

Or, please use a different character instead of ‘b’, e.g., ‘the ratio r = b/a’ and ‘T = r / Ue ’.

To shorten introduction, this part was withdrawn since it requires more details to explain

 

Line 256: “the square cell (~2.5)” ; what is the unit of 2.5? Is this indicating the 2-nautical mile grid

resolution described in Line 250?

It is “~2.5 km” but this part of 3.1 was rewritten with more details on the model. 

 

Lines 250-259: Information on time step (Dt) and vertical grid (or vertical layers) would be described

in the model setup. How many years were simulated for the study using monthly climatological

forcing?

More details on model parameters were added in 3.1

 

Lines 260-262: “ … forced with … monthly winds, and river runoff from the 31 largest rivers [59].” ;

what is the source of monthly winds? Did the authors apply annual values of river discharges for river

forcing?

Monthly river discharges from [59] were used.

 

Lines 268-271: “The validation of DieCAST/Die2BS …” ; Reference [62] is for the Monterey Bay

not for the Black Sea.

This reference describes the validation of DieCAST lying in the base of Die2BS was performed by group Taiwanese scientists (Prof Y-H Tseng et al) headed by DieCAST’ creator David Dietrich. Architecture of DieCAST used for the Monterey Bay modeling is very close to that used for the Black Sea. The group from Taipei University (NTU) is also under way to develop DieCAST for the Black Sea. In the text it was mentioned “The validation of DieCAST lying in the base of Die2BS was…..”

 

Lines 313-371: The results in this part came from Reference [39]. As mentioned above, this part looks

previous study work (introduction) or methodology rather than the results from this paper.

This short part from [39] is to recall the results on isolated eddy dynamics to compare them with the results of dynamics and effect on river plumes obtaining in the present study

 

Line 317: what does ‘BAE’ abbreviate for? This will be the first use of BAE.

BAE is the Batumi Anticyclonic Eddy. It was mentioned on Line 317.

 

Line 388: “day 90” а “Day 90” ; Please change all ‘day NUMBER’ to ‘Day NUMBER’ in the

manuscript to be consistent with those in Figures 5 & 7.

All was changed

 

Line 391: “BAE denotes Batumi AE.” ; Now what BAE does mean. As mentioned above. BAE was

used firstly in Line 317.

BAE is the Batumi Anticyclonic Eddy.  It was corrected throughout the text

 

Line 454: “The red and magenta stars … ” ; It is hard to see the stars in Figure 5. Please make them

larger in Figure 5.

A black contour was added in each star to delineate it and improve its visibility.

 

Line 483: “… the maximum of z/f0 … was -0.4” а “… the maximum of anticyclonic z/f0 … was -

0.4” or “… the maximum of negative z/f0 … was -0.4” ; Please check this for the entire manuscript.

All was corrected

 

Lines 508-509 : “the value of z/f0 decreased to about 0.9 and 0.6” а “the value of z/f0 increased to

about 0.9 and 0.6” ; In Day 75 the values are -0.1 and -1.2, respectively (Line 490). In Day 85, those

values increased to 0.9 and 0.6, respectively. Please check this for the entire manuscript.

Here are all about anticyclonic eddies with negative values of ζ/, so that the values must be -0.9 and -0.6.  This was corrected through the text

 

Lines 571-600 : It is hard to recognize the EC structures in MODIS Aqua optical satellite images

shown in Figure 6 although they were denoted in different color dashed ellipses. Could the authors

use any chl-a images on the same or similar dates? MODIS level 2 daily chl-a data with a 1-kim

resolution for 2003-2017 were used to describe, detect, and investigate mesoscale eddies in the Black

Sea as described in Reference [64] [Zatsepin et al., 2019].

Unfortunately, we could not use a sequence of high resolution images of MODIS level 2 daily chl-a data with a 1-kim. We just mentioned about such resolution in [64](see the inset in Figure 5 ‘Day 95’)

 

Line 594 : “13 May” а “13 June”

Changed

 

Line 604 : “Recent in situ studies [68] …” ; Reference [68] is the modeling study for the Southern

California Current system.

In [68], Chenillat et al, 2018 studied the particle transport in SCCS. We used their approach and applied it in our study.

 

Line 609 : “To analyzing” а “To analyze”

Fixed

 

Line 621 : “The totals of 312000 particles …” ; This number seems to be incorrect. Based on “We

stated launching of particles on day 60 (the model year 39) and continued until the day 160.” in Lines

619-620, the total 480000 particles were released at each river (200 particles/hour x 24 hour/day x 100

days = 480000).

Thank you for this remark.  Mentioned 312000 particles, it is the amount of particles launched by ‘Day 125’ , but because Figure 7 showed particles launched in the period from Day 60 to 120 it would be correct to mention amount of 288000 particles.

Totally, the experiment was continued until the day 160 i.e., 480000 were launched. This was noted in the text below the Figure 7.

 

Line 630 : How was C (integral particle concentration) calculated? And what is the unit of C?

C=N/V = number of particles (N) in unit cell (V_o). The integral particle concentration means total number of particles in the layer of 0-50 m. It was explained in the text describing Figure 7

 

Line 644 : “Figure 6” а “Figure 5”

Changed

 

Line 677 : “It” а “it”

Changed

 

Line 681 : “The comparison of Figures 5 and 7 …” ; Figure 5 shows a sequence of normalized

vertical vorticity z/f0 at the depth of 50 m but Figure 7 depicts a sequence of streamlines and surface

particle concentration. Why don’t the authors compare them at the surface? The distribution of

vorticity at the depths shallower than 50 m was missing in Figure 5. Satellite imagery demonstrated

surface eddies, not at 50 m depth.

Good question! It is just to show the cores and avoid the effect of wind. For the comparison, we have taken eddy cores that are smoother that those at the sea surface.

 

Lines 683-685 : “ the process of eddy merging occurred when a newborn eddy moving faster than the

eddy at the mature stage … ” ; Could you explain why a newborn eddy moves faster than mature

eddy? What factors do control the speed of a newborn eddy?

It is associated with unevenly distributed velocity of the RC. As the Die2BS indicated, current velocity greatly accelerates over and beyond the Pitsunda Ridge and slows down on the way from the Ridge. It resulted in that eddies, being born right beyond the Ridge, moves faster that those born earlier. It causes them to emerge.

 

Line 712 : “” а “2-nautical mile”

Here is the model resolution of 2-nautical minutes (not miles – it is a typo),  i.e. about 2.6 km. It was corrected in the text.

 

Line 728 : “WL” а “WT”

Changed.

 

Lines 750-751 : “ Examination of satellite imagery illustrating the interaction of EC’s structure with

river plumes indicated main features of their interaction.” ; I think, satellite imagery only captured

EC’s structure during the period of May to July 2017 in Figure 6, thus it is hard to say that those

images indicated the interaction between ECs and river plumes.

We agree with this doubt. Interpretation could be made on base of the base of 3-D analysis of both eddy structures and river waters involvement.

 

Lines 753-755 : Although the authors used a similar method (LPTM) to that in the authors’ previous

study (Reference [39]) to elucidate the interaction between ECs and river plume, I would like to

suggest that additional Die2BS simulation without river forcing along the NCC to directly compare

with the Die2BS simulation with river forcing. Low salinity from the river could be one of the tracers

to indicate the interaction.

Yes, we performed experiments with salinity as a tracer and found interesting results but the problem was in that salinity is not, strictly speaking, a passive tracer and it was difficult to interpret such experiments. But it is a good idea to compare both approaches.

 

Lines 802-879 : The outputs from spectral analyses should be one of quantitative results in this study.

I suggest that this part be moved to result section. The authors can compare the spectral analysis

results from two simulations (with and without river forcings) to investigate the interaction between

ECs and river plumes.

Good idea with the comparison. As to spectral analysis, we placed it to Appendix not to interrupt narrative text

 

Lines 895-1063 : Please re-check if there are incorrect format and typos in the reference. I found some

below:

 

Line 995 : Last names should come first in Reference [50].

Fixed

 

Line 1003 : Last names should come first in Reference [53]. Reference [53] is not completed. I think,

the authors intended to point out the reference in http://jr.rse.cosmos.ru/article.aspx?id=687&lang=eng.

Thank you.

Fixed

 

Line 1014 : In Reference [59], “Chomeriki” а “Khomerki” ;

Fixed

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The revised version has improved over the first one, addressing appropriately the concerns that I had. However, although the authors answered 'Changed' to my review, several typos were not changed yet. Please re-check the previous review comment carefully. Additionally, the authors should represent English writing improvement in the revised manuscript. 

 

Author Response

The revised version has improved over the first one, addressing appropriately the concerns that I had. However, although the authors answered 'Changed' to my review, several typos were not changed yet. Please re-check the previous review comment carefully. Additionally, the authors should represent English writing improvement in the revised manuscript.

Reply to Reviewer #3

Thank you very much for your comments and remarks which served to improve the article. According to your recommendations, we re-checked all previous review comments and made the related corrections to the text. Finally, the manuscript was proofread by an expert English speaker, which substantially improved the manuscript expression and grammar.

 

Many thanks for the editor’s and reviewer’s comments which served to improve the article. According to your recommendations, we transferred the Appendix to the Results section (section 4.3). Also, we re-checked all previous review comments and made the related corrections to the text. Finally, the manuscript was proofread by an expert English speaker, which substantially improved the manuscript expression and grammar. Also, important details were added in Figures 1 and 3 for clarification according to reviewers’ suggestions

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf