Comment on tc-2021-343 Anonymous Referee # 2 Referee comment on " The effect of changing sea ice on nearshore wave climate trends along Alaska ’ s central Beaufort Sea coast

The authors compared the different friction formulations and coefficients. Even though, the authors have given references to those formulations. Instead of going to read the references, I strongly suggest that the authors give a general introduction about those formulations (like they did for the wave decay by ice). What is the main difference between those formulations? L194-197: Why do the authors give the calibration information in the caption of Figure 4? Is there any logical connection with Figure 4? L142-148: I suggest that the information about calibration here should be moved and merged with L230-235. 20% of the data were used for the ice season calibration, which is stated in L234. However, in L259, it said that “for all 13 observations”. I am confused that how much data are used for the calibration.

The authors compared the different friction formulations and coefficients. Even though, the authors have given references to those formulations. Instead of going to read the references, I strongly suggest that the authors give a general introduction about those formulations (like they did for the wave decay by ice). What is the main difference between those formulations? L194-197: Why do the authors give the calibration information in the caption of Figure  4? Is there any logical connection with Figure 4? L142-148: I suggest that the information about calibration here should be moved and merged with L230-235. 20% of the data were used for the ice season calibration, which is stated in L234. However, in L259, it said that "for all 13 observations". I am confused that how much data are used for the calibration.
The impact of air-sea temperature difference on wind growth is used in the model set-up. Which SST data did you use? ERA5? I would suggest that the authors give some discussion about the limitation of the SST in the marginal ice zone since it is an important data source for your simulations.
The finest model resolution is about 500m in the simulations. The wind forcing data from ERA5 is about 30km. Many small-scale wind variations cannot be captured by ERA5 in the marginal ice zone. I am wondering why did you use so coarse resolution wind data for so high-resolution wave simulations. At least some discussions about this issue should be added to the manuscript.
From my understanding, the wind sea is largely decayed by ice in the marginal ice zone.
In the relative small domain areas, the waves are mainly dominated by swell during the ice season, is it true? If it is the case, I would assume that the accuracy of the simulations during the ice season is largely affected by the wave boundary conditions, right?
Detail comments: Figure 1: it will be easier for readers to get the water depth distribution if you add the topographer information in Figure 1 or Figure 4. Figure 2: Give the information that the location of the ERA5 is shown in Figure 1. L110: "110^oN" to "110^o"; "75^oN" to "110^o" L213: n->N L215: "wave height"->" significant wave height"; "wave period"->"mean wave period", etc Figure 5B: What is T_{m0}? You use T_m as the mean wave period in the above text.
L254: data in 2007 or 2019 (caption in Figure 6)? L265: What is 5% PI in figure 6C? L284: Figure 7B is wave period or wave height? The ylabel shows H_s, I think it should be Tm.
L285: I am confused about the data. In the title of the figure, they are 2020A and 2020B+C. In the caption, they are #0519-1 and 0519-2. If you check the Table1, 2020A is #0518. L334: Table 3->Table 4   L354: Table 3->Table 4 L370: How did you identify the storms? L379 mean wave period or peak wave period? L389: mean wave direction or peak wave direction? L397: Table 3->Table 4 L400: How did you calculate the wave power? Based on wave spectrum or bulk parameters?