Accelerated Glacier Area Loss in the Zhetysu (Dzhungar) Alatau Range (Tien Shan) for the Period of 1956–2016
, Azamat Kaldybayev 1,3,4,*, Kanat Zulpykharov 1,3, Nurmakhambet Sydyk 1,3, Aibek Merekeyev 1, Daniker Chepashev 1, Aiman Nyssanbayeva 3, Gulnura Issanova 5 and Gonghuan Fang 4Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
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Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
L 22 Here, we present …
L 25-26 ….our results show that ….
L 27 Glacier shrinkage rate ….
Please state somewhere in the Abstract what was the total glacier number and area (km2) according to different years and how much ice has melted overall.
L 29-31 In addition, we carried …
Please delete this sentence. Instead, say what are the main finding from this analysis.
L 3-37 Please state specific numbers how much warming have you observed.
L38 …climatic conditions play a main role in the state of glaciers.
Please be more specific. Do you mean temperatures? Precipitation? Radiation?
Figure 3
Please add a scale bar and orientation mark to this image.
L265 517.4 ± 14.5 km2
You giving the uncertainty here and elsewhere in the manuscript, but have you calculated uncertainty? Have you used buffer method? Or multiple digitization?
Before you start result section, you must describe the uncertainty (probably one paragraph).
Without the uncertainty description this paper can not be published.
Table 3. Glacier area change according to individual river basin?
Table 4. Average annual and summer rates of change in air temperature (ºÐ¡ / 10 years) 432 and precipitation (mm / 10 years)
For what period? 1960-2020? Please specify.
L500-521
Ok, I see that you describe an uncertainty in result section.
Please remove it to the methodology section.
Discussion section needs some work:
My main advice would be to add a separate subsection at the and of the Discussion where you compare your results with other glacier inventories from different mountain regions in similar periods. Such as:
Greater Caucasus
Tielidze, L. G. and Wheate, R. D.: The Greater Caucasus Glacier Inventory (Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan), The Cryosphere, 12, 81–94, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-81-2018, 2018.
European Alps
Paul, F., Rastner, P., Azzoni, R. S., Diolaiuti, G., Fugazza, D., Le Bris, R., Nemec, J., Rabatel, A., Ramusovic, M., Schwaizer, G., and Smiraglia, C.: Glacier shrinkage in the Alps continues unabated as revealed by a new glacier inventory from Sentinel-2, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 1805–1821, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-1805-2020, 2020.
Norway (1947-2006)
Winsvold, S. H., Andreassen, L. M., and Kienholz, C.: Glacier area and length changes in Norway from repeat inventories, The Cryosphere, 8, 1885–1903, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-1885-2014, 2014.
Canadian Rocky Mountains
Tennant, C., Menounos, B., Wheate, R., and Clague, J. J.: Area change of glaciers in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, 1919 to 2006, The Cryosphere, 6, 1541–1552, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-6-1541-2012, 2012.
In this comparison, you can talk about possible reasons for the similar/different rates of glacier decline. This type of comparison helps you create a big picture and not just focus on the mountains of Central Asia.
My suggestion to others is to upload your dataset to GLIMS or some other open platform that everyone can access.
I hope authors will accept my recommendations. After these changes manuscript can be published to RS.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
