Tree canopy and snow depth relationships at fine scales with terrestrial laser scanning

Hojatimalekshah, Ahmad; Uhlmann, Zachary; Glenn, Nancy F.; Hiemstra, Christopher A.; Tennant, Christopher J.; Graham, Jake D.; Spaete, Lucas; Gelvin, Arthur; Marshall, Hans-Peter; McNamara, James P.; Enterkine, Josh

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-2187-2021

Articles | Volume 15, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-2187-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-2187-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 5

Research article

|

06 May 2021

Research article |

| 06 May 2021

Tree canopy and snow depth relationships at fine scales with terrestrial laser scanning

Ahmad Hojatimalekshah, Zachary Uhlmann, Nancy F. Glenn, Christopher A. Hiemstra, Christopher J. Tennant, Jake D. Graham, Lucas Spaete, Arthur Gelvin, Hans-Peter Marshall, James P. McNamara, and Josh Enterkine

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Final revised paper (published on 06 May 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 23 Oct 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Review of Hojatimalekshah et al.', Phillip Harder, 27 Nov 2020
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Nancy Glenn, 18 Jan 2021
RC2: 'Review of Hojatimalekshah et al., “Tree canopy and snow depth relationships at fine scales with terrestrial laser scanning“', Anonymous Referee #2, 28 Nov 2020
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Nancy Glenn, 18 Jan 2021

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (20 Jan 2021) by Chris Derksen

AR by Nancy Glenn on behalf of the Authors (03 Mar 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (04 Mar 2021) by Chris Derksen

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (24 Mar 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors have improved the manuscript and have answered my previous comments. I recommend publication after some minor changes listed below. I do not need to see the manuscript again after revisions, I believe it will be suited for publication. Literature has been included that was previously missing and the general readability has been improved. The Results and Discussion have been significantly improved and the limitations are clearly stated. I believe some of the figures have been edited and they are much easier to understand in the new version.

1. I think the authors may want to update the key results in the Abstract with the revised results. For example, the statement “the results emphasize the importance of tree species and distribution on snow depth patterns.” is too general. It would be beneficial to include some quantifications.
2. [L14] In the Abstract, please provide a study period of the TLS data collection (e.g. winter 2016-2017).
3. [L15-17] I am not sure if the specific algorithms’ names such as the Marker-controlled watershed algorithm and Multi-scale Model to Model Cloud Comparison (M3C2) algorithm should be included in the abstract. Because the title implies interactions between tree canopy and snow depth as the main objective, “multiple linear regression and decision tree” might be better to be included here as methods used to quantify the relationships.
4. [L65-70] There are more recent studies estimating snow depth using the UAS-based lidar and photogrammetric techniques that would be helpful for potential readers with this manuscript.
- Lee, S.; Park, J.; Choi, E.; Kim, D. Factors Influencing the Accuracy of Shallow Snow Depth Measured Using UAV-Based Photogrammetry. Remote Sens. 2021, 13, 828. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13040828
- Jacobs, J. M., Hunsaker, A. G., Sullivan, F. B., Palace, M., Burakowski, E. A., Herrick, C., & Cho, E. (2021). Shallow snow depth mapping with unmanned aerial systems lidar observations: A case study in Durham, New Hampshire, United States. The Cryosphere, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2020-37
5. [L242] Provide the full reference (ESRI, 2015) in the list.
6. [L309-310] I would suggest providing a range of the snow depth in text with Figures 5 and 6 and then describing differences in snow depths between the open and under the canopy.
7. [L329] It would be good to add an intro sentence here for this subsection.
8. [L330] “foliage height diversity” is already defined. Would you check all predefined terms throughout the manuscript?
9. [L345] “in open areas”
10. [L596 – 598] The final statement of the Conclusions looks too overreaching statement. Please rephrase or remove. Also, GEDI does not define earlier.
11. Tables 2, 4, and 5: For p-value, it would be good to simply state “< 0.001” or something like that for extremely low values. Please add a description of how “Not significant” was determined (e.g. p-value > 0.001) in the caption.
12. Table A4: Be consistent with the decimal number.

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RR by Phillip Harder (31 Mar 2021)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (31 Mar 2021) by Chris Derksen

Short summary

We describe the relationships between snow depth, vegetation canopy, and local-scale processes during the snow accumulation period using terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). In addition to topography and wind, our findings suggest the importance of fine-scale tree structure, species type, and distributions on snow depth. Snow depth increases from the canopy edge toward the open areas, but wind and topographic controls may affect this trend. TLS data are complementary to wide-area lidar surveys.