Future Changes in the Free Tropospheric Freezing Level and Rain–Snow Limit: The Case of Central Chile
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The study uses the free tropospheric height of the 0°C isotherm (H0) as a proxy of the freezing level and study its overall distribution in present climate as well as changes projected to occur during the rest of the 21st century in central Chile. I found the paper interesting and the authors presented their findings very well. I believe the paper will be a good addition to atmosphere journal. However, the manuscript requires some moderate modifications before publication. Please find more details in the second comment below.
Minor Issues:
- Line 63: sharp sentence. Please rephrase” In this study we precisely address the impact of climate change on the freezing level ….”
- Long conclusion! The authors should mention only the main findings of their study.
Major Issues:
- Authors need to include more previous studies, in the introduction section, over the region and around the world that are related to the topic of the study. Introduction should include a comprehensive review about the subject of the study.
- The authors should use may, might, could, and probably…etc. instead of is, will be, …, especially, in the last two paragraphs of the conclusion. Please rephrase.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
We thank your general comments and appreciate your constructive minor points, all of them addressed in the revised version. Note that based on comments from Revs. 2 and 3, we reduced the global analysis, change the title and added results based on RCP4.5 scenario (in addition to the primary RCP8.5 scenario).
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
see attached
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
We appreciate very much your positive view of our work and constructive comments, almost all of them incorporated in the revised version. We agree in focusing the manuscript on the regional aspect. Thus we minimized the global “analyses” while keeping just a two maps to provide a large-scale context to our results. We also expanded (a) the rationale behind using H0 as a proxy of the surface-based rain-snow limit and (b) the discussion on the hydrological impact (recognizing, however, that we are using simple estimates). Furthermore, we added some results based on RCP4.5 scenario (in addition to the primary RCP8.5 scenario) following the advice of another reviewer.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
It is very interesting well written and illustration topic
I have some special remarks on that (more comments are attached):
The global scale is not providing any additional value to the manuscript. If you are interested in other mountainous regions you should use the local data from meteorological stations, sounding, etc. then the research will cover the whole scale. Figures 1 and 6 should be removed.
The results only based on RCP8.5 is not enough. Are you suggesting that in other cases (e.g. RCP4.5) there will be no significant changes and impacts on H0 and water discharge?
The uncertainty presented by CMIP5 models are big, however threes is no detailed explanations about the models. Maybe the parametrization and projections are very similar and you do not cover the whole specter of possible conditions in the future. More references and analysis on models should be provided.
In Figure 7b Why the grey line H095 of historical period is not reacting to the altitude changes, and in the future it will?
You are entering hydrologic cycle and balance analysis and impacts, however the system is more complex and the assumptions based only on atmospheric water data are too risky.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
We appreciate your general comments and specific points, almost all of them addressed in the new version. Some points were repeated. Below are our point-by-point responses, but we first provide a summary of the key issues addressed in the new version:
i) We agree that our study is regional in scope. Following your advice Figures 1 and 6, along with their inferences, were substantially reduced but not fully omitted. We consider relevant providing a global context to determine whether the results that we obtain in central Chile conform a general pattern or they are site-specific. Likewise, the title, abstract, introduction and conclusion were modified to further emphasise the regional nature of our work.
iii. The manuscript was also shortened (and sharpened) by reducing the Study Area section, references to model uncertainty, and limiting the conclusion to our specific results. On the other hand we clarified the GCM selection. Even more relevant, many of the analyses using RCP8.5 (worst case scenario) were repeated with the more benign RCP4.5. That required substantial work against the clock but we felt your requested added important new material to our paper.
iii. The hydrological estimates are first order and contingent to the scenario RCP8.5. We were also asked to expand these estimates. Using a hydrological model is beyond the scope of this work. We thus reworded parts of section 4.c and caution the reader on those caveats in several instances through the paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
I am very satisfied with the improvements and the progress of the authors team. I do not have any major or minor comments on the manuscript structure, text, figures and tables.
I found the research very interesting and with a lot of possibilities to continue and to replicate in other parts of the world.
Maybe, I miss something about recently widely used remote methods. It is interesting to know about remote sensing techniques depicting the freezing point, are any progress and possibilities to use it instead on radiosonding data?
