Non-linear aspects of the tidal dynamics in the Sylt-Rømø Bight, south-eastern North Sea

Fofonova, Vera; Androsov, Alexey; Sander, Lasse; Kuznetsov, Ivan; Amorim, Felipe; Hass, H. Christian; Wiltshire, Karen H.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-1761-2019

Articles | Volume 15, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-1761-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Developments in the science and history of tides (OS/ACP/HGSS/NPG/SE...

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-1761-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 6

Research article

|

16 Dec 2019

Research article |

| 16 Dec 2019

Non-linear aspects of the tidal dynamics in the Sylt-Rømø Bight, south-eastern North Sea

Vera Fofonova, Alexey Androsov, Lasse Sander, Ivan Kuznetsov, Felipe Amorim, H. Christian Hass, and Karen H. Wiltshire

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Final revised paper (published on 16 Dec 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 08 Jul 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review of "Non-linear aspects of the tidal dynamics in the Sylt-Rømø Bight, south-eastern North Sea" by Vera Fofonova et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 23 Aug 2019
- AC1: 'authors_response', Vera Fofonova, 08 Oct 2019
RC2: ''Review of "Non-linear aspects of the tidal dynamics in the Sylt-Rømø Bight, south-eastern North Sea" by Vera Fofonova et al.'', Anonymous Referee #2, 25 Aug 2019
- AC2: 'authors response', Vera Fofonova, 08 Oct 2019
EC1: 'Editor comment "Non-linear aspects of the tidal dynamics in the Sylt-Rømø Bight, south-eastern North Sea"', Mattias Green, 13 Sep 2019
- AC3: 'authors_response', Vera Fofonova, 08 Oct 2019

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Vera Fofonova on behalf of the Authors (08 Oct 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (28 Oct 2019) by Mattias Green

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (29 Oct 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Non-liner aspects of the tidal dynamics in the Sylt-Romo Bight, south-eastern North Sea
Fofonova et al.
doi.org/10.5194/os-2019-73

This is a high resolution hydrodynamic modelling study of a region of the Wadden Sea. A new bathymetric product for the region has been incorporated as model input, allowing for higher resolution simulations to be conducted – but what are the implications of this to the wider field? Overall, I felt that although the methods were sound, the paper lacked novelty and read as more of a ‘site characterisation’ study than a piece of novel research. My main comment is that the authors could do more to convince the readers that this is an interesting region to study, and to describe more clearly what this paper adds to the field of knowledge on the area/ implications for future modelling studies. Further still, there are numerous ambiguous and subjective statements made. Because of the lack of explicit motivation for the importance/relevance of this work, I found the lengthy results section difficult to follow. On this basis, I would recommend that the manuscript be returned to the authors for a major (editorial) revision, to include the re-working of many of the figures. My apologies that it has taken me a long time to return this review.

I have included some general comments below. I have made many hand-written notes on the manuscript that should point to where I saw the above issues manifested (please see the attached scanned document). I stopped correcting the language on page 8, but ambiguous terms remain which need to be edited out. What are “patchy dynamics”? What are velocities which are “nearly always larger”? Please quantify, expand, elaborate, justify and support your statements.

General comments
1. The abstract could do with opening with a broader, overarching introduction of the topic, rather than launching into what is done here.
2. The language used was subjective in places (e.g. “ the quite good results”) – please take care to make all statements objective.
3. Can you avoid referring to the grids as first and second grids (which is confusing), but instead refer to them as ‘curvilinear’ and ‘unstructured’ (or similar, as appropriate).
4. line 194 – what were these additional experiments? It’s fine not to show them, but what were they and how did you get to the conclusion that you draw?
5. Line 200 – same or worse results? Please elaborate.
6. Line 224-225, please can we have a range of depth layer thicknesses and explain how these were parameterized, e.g. terrain-following?
7. Line 237 – “ the same probably holds”. This is ambiguous, and does not fill me with confidence in the rest of your interpretations, please can you clarify, and back this statement up?
8. Please revise the figure colour scales! Please improve upon the multi-coloured ones, as a matter of priority. Figures 3, 6, 8 and 9, in particular, are impossible to interpret.
9. Figure 4, pink and red difficult to differentiate, please consider dashed lines or something, so that these are meaningful even in black and white.
10. The vector plots cannot be interpreted, these need to be made clearer. Fewer arrows perhaps? Please reconsider how these data are presented.
11. The discussion is short and lacking depth and detail. What have you found, what are the implications, and for whom? Please revise and improve.

Referee Report: PDF

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (29 Oct 2019) by Mattias Green

AR by Vera Fofonova on behalf of the Authors (06 Nov 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (13 Nov 2019) by Mattias Green

AR by Vera Fofonova on behalf of the Authors (14 Nov 2019) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

This study is dedicated to tidally induced dynamics in the Sylt-Rømø Bight with a focus on the non-linear component. The tidal residual circulation and asymmetric tidal cycles largely define the circulation pattern, transport and accumulation of sediment, and the distribution of bedforms. The newly obtained high-quality bathymetric data supported the use of high-resolution grids (up to 2 m in the intertidal zone) and elaboration of the details of tidal energy transformation in the domain.