Coastal Morphodynamics and Climate Change: A Review of Recent Advances

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The research is significant, but the quality of manuscript is not high enough to be published in the journal, my suggestion is resubmit after modification based on next reasons:

1. Key issues such as how to characterize and evolve the relationship between climate change and coastal morphodynamics changes have not been clarified.

2. Lack of data support for coastal morphodynamics evolution under climate change scenarios.

3. Please provide a schematic diagram of climate change and coastal morphodynamics evolution.

4. There are grammar and formatting errors, such as the need to supplement the full name for the first abbreviation in English and format error in line 21 [49] (Fruergaard et al., 2015).

5. The framework structure of this paper is completely different from scientific reviews. Suggest that the author align the paper framework with reviews published in Journals indexed by SCI.

6. Enhance the conclusion section, summarize the current research status and trends, and propose future research recommendations. 

Author Response

Summary of Emendations to JMSE 2624610

Some background to this paper is appropriate to begin. LD Wright was asked to join 2 other topic editors and invite contributions to a special issue of JMSE focused on the impacts of climate change on coastal morphodynamic processes and their outcomes. To launch this project, LDW was asked to prepare an editorial outlining to goals and some background. After the draft editorial was reviewed, editor Arya Cui suggested that this be expanded to an introductory review (not a detailed systematic review) of some of the most recent publications on this topic to provide some starting points for prospective contributors to the special section. That was the rationale for the paper. In this version, we have done our best to address suggestions from the three reviewers although some of the suggestions from one reviewer could not be properly addressed because they were beyond the scope and intent of the article and because we did not have original data of our own to present. This was intended to be a succinct summary review of the current state of the science on this topic. We have, however, tried to address as many of the points as possible and the attached revision addresses all the suggestions by two of the reviewers.

 

Attached are docx files of our revisions with track changes on (text in red) and with changes accepted and a pdf with changes accepted. I can summarize the changes as follows:

1. Two figures have been added to the document. Figure 2 is the most important since it is very timely, and it anchors what we consider to be the overarching first order conclusion emerging from our review. Both Figures are in the public domain and do not require permission to republish.
2. The text has been expanded in several places. Most importantly, and as requested by reviewer 1, the conclusion section now has additional text elaborating on the most important, first order conclusions and including Figure 2. It also has been expanded to outline, in more detail, some of the current modeling methodologies currently in use and needed in the future. This was suggested by an editor.
3. As suggested by reviewer 2, we have inserted some text on the classic “Bruun rule” beginning with line 291. Also as suggested by reviewer 2, the word tsunami on line 447 was out of place and has been deleted and replaced by “human activity”.
4. Several other, relatively minor cosmetic and typographical errors have been corrected and we have edited the abstract to make it more explicit.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

New understandings of cascading climate-change related physical, ecological, socioeconomic effects, and multi-faceted morphodynamic systems are summarized here, based theory, observations, numerically modelled results, regional case studies and global projections. This manuscript presents very interesting results on coastal morphodynamics due to climate change that are clearly of broad interest and deserve publication after minor revisions.

(1) As there is no diagram in this paper, some descriptions are difficult to understand. Thus, it will be useful to add a few diagrams for understanding.

(2) P.4 Line 188, “4. Coastal Erosion and shoreline transgression”: It will be useful to refer to Per Bruun’s model, as it has widely been utilized by so many past studies.

(3) P.10 Line 490, “tsunami”: The reviewer cannot find description regarding tsunami-induced morphodynamics in [99].

 

Author Response

Summary of Emendations to JMSE 2624610

Some background to this paper is appropriate to begin. LD Wright was asked to join 2 other topic editors and invite contributions to a special issue of JMSE focused on the impacts of climate change on coastal morphodynamic processes and their outcomes. To launch this project, LDW was asked to prepare an editorial outlining to goals and some background. After the draft editorial was reviewed, editor Arya Cui suggested that this be expanded to an introductory review (not a detailed systematic review) of some of the most recent publications on this topic to provide some starting points for prospective contributors to the special section. That was the rationale for the paper. In this version, we have done our best to address suggestions from the three reviewers although some of the suggestions from one reviewer could not be properly addressed because they were beyond the scope and intent of the article and because we did not have original data of our own to present. This was intended to be a succinct summary review of the current state of the science on this topic. We have, however, tried to address as many of the points as possible and the attached revision addresses all the suggestions by two of the reviewers.

 

Attached are docx files of our revisions with track changes on (text in red) and with changes accepted and a pdf with changes accepted. I can summarize the changes as follows:

1. Two figures have been added to the document. Figure 2 is the most important since it is very timely, and it anchors what we consider to be the overarching first order conclusion emerging from our review. Both Figures are in the public domain and do not require permission to republish.
2. The text has been expanded in several places. Most importantly, and as requested by reviewer 1, the conclusion section now has additional text elaborating on the most important, first order conclusions and including Figure 2. It also has been expanded to outline, in more detail, some of the current modeling methodologies currently in use and needed in the future. This was suggested by an editor.
3. As suggested by reviewer 2, we have inserted some text on the classic “Bruun rule” beginning with line 291. Also as suggested by reviewer 2, the word tsunami on line 447 was out of place and has been deleted and replaced by “human activity”.
4. Several other, relatively minor cosmetic and typographical errors have been corrected and we have edited the abstract to make it more explicit.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper represents a comprehensive review of climate change impacts on coastal morphodynamics and highlights tipping points of coastal inundation from sea level rise caused by climate change. The manuscript offers valuable information regarding tipping points for many coastal systems and the authors discuss some recent advances in identifying critical tipping points and cascading physical, ecological, socioeconomic effects, and multi-faceted complex systems in the USA and Australia. Overall, the manuscript will be of interest to coastal specialist and I recommend this high-quality review paper for publication in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering.

Author Response

Summary of Emendations to JMSE 2624610

Some background to this paper is appropriate to begin. LD Wright was asked to join 2 other topic editors and invite contributions to a special issue of JMSE focused on the impacts of climate change on coastal morphodynamic processes and their outcomes. To launch this project, LDW was asked to prepare an editorial outlining to goals and some background. After the draft editorial was reviewed, editor Arya Cui suggested that this be expanded to an introductory review (not a detailed systematic review) of some of the most recent publications on this topic to provide some starting points for prospective contributors to the special section. That was the rationale for the paper. In this version, we have done our best to address suggestions from the three reviewers although some of the suggestions from one reviewer could not be properly addressed because they were beyond the scope and intent of the article and because we did not have original data of our own to present. This was intended to be a succinct summary review of the current state of the science on this topic. We have, however, tried to address as many of the points as possible and the attached revision addresses all the suggestions by two of the reviewers.

 

Attached are docx files of our revisions with track changes on (text in red) and with changes accepted and a pdf with changes accepted. I can summarize the changes as follows:

1. Two figures have been added to the document. Figure 2 is the most important since it is very timely, and it anchors what we consider to be the overarching first order conclusion emerging from our review. Both Figures are in the public domain and do not require permission to republish.
2. The text has been expanded in several places. Most importantly, and as requested by reviewer 1, the conclusion section now has additional text elaborating on the most important, first order conclusions and including Figure 2. It also has been expanded to outline, in more detail, some of the current modeling methodologies currently in use and needed in the future. This was suggested by an editor.
3. As suggested by reviewer 2, we have inserted some text on the classic “Bruun rule” beginning with line 291. Also as suggested by reviewer 2, the word tsunami on line 447 was out of place and has been deleted and replaced by “human activity”.
4. Several other, relatively minor cosmetic and typographical errors have been corrected and we have edited the abstract to make it more explicit.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The reviewer has no comments, suggest acceptance.