Fractional snow-covered area: scale-independent peak of winter parameterization

Helbig, Nora; Bühler, Yves; Eberhard, Lucie; Deschamps-Berger, César; Gascoin, Simon; Dumont, Marie; Revuelto, Jesus; Deems, Jeff S.; Jonas, Tobias

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-615-2021

Articles | Volume 15, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-615-2021

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-615-2021

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

Articles | Volume 15, issue 2

Research article

|

09 Feb 2021

Research article |

| 09 Feb 2021

Fractional snow-covered area: scale-independent peak of winter parameterization

Nora Helbig, Yves Bühler, Lucie Eberhard, César Deschamps-Berger, Simon Gascoin, Marie Dumont, Jesus Revuelto, Jeff S. Deems, and Tobias Jonas

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Final revised paper (published on 09 Feb 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 27 Aug 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review of “Fractional snow-covered area: Scale-independent peak of winter parameterization” by Helbig et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 07 Oct 2020
- AC1: 'Reply to the review of anonymous referee #1', Nora Helbig, 19 Nov 2020
RC2: 'Reviewer Comment', Anonymous Referee #2, 29 Oct 2020
- AC2: 'Reply to the review of anonymous referee #2', Nora Helbig, 19 Nov 2020

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (05 Dec 2020) by Carrie Vuyovich

AR by Nora Helbig on behalf of the Authors (06 Dec 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (23 Dec 2020) by Carrie Vuyovich

Dear Authors,
Thank you for your revised manuscript, and addressing the reviewer's comments. I think it's in good shape. I have a few minor additional suggestions for your consideration:

Line 30: “fSCA is also parameter in hydrological models to scale water discharges in the different model grid cells managing in this way appropriately basins water supply” – add “a” between “also” and “parameter”; the second half of the sentence “in the different model grid cells managing in this way appropriately basins water supply” is unclear as written. Maybe something like “scale water discharges appropriately to help manage basins water supply”?

Line 79: “Snow depth data at these high resolutions now allow to statistically analyze spatial snow depth patterns for various purposes” – missing a word between “allow” and “to”

Line 381: Change “(about 17 % respectively 45 % larger)” to “(about 17% and 45%, respectively)”

Line 403: Similarly, change “12 % respectively 38 %” to “12% and 38%, respectively”

Both reviewers indicated that it was unclear from the text whether a sigma snow depth parameter derived at peak of winter could be used to develop an fSCA curve throughout the season. The text is improved with the removal of “peak of winter” to describe fSCA and in the conclusion (lines 475-487), but I suggest additional explanation in the introduction may help reduce any confusion as readers go through the paper (e.g. at line 74, at the end of the paragraph where the parameter is introduced).

The summer terrain parameters are defined in section 3.3, but a discussion on the variability of those characteristics in the pooled data is given in section 3.1. Is it possible to rearrange the text so the parameter definition comes first?

Best,
Carrie Vuyovich

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AR by Nora Helbig on behalf of the Authors (28 Dec 2020) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (30 Dec 2020) by Carrie Vuyovich

Short summary

The spatial variability in snow depth in mountains is driven by interactions between topography, wind, precipitation and radiation. In applications such as weather, climate and hydrological predictions, this is accounted for by the fractional snow-covered area describing the fraction of the ground surface covered by snow. We developed a new description for model grid cell sizes larger than 200 m. An evaluation suggests that the description performs similarly well in most geographical regions.