Microclimatic comparison of lichen heaths and shrubs: shrubification generates atmospheric heating but subsurface cooling during the growing season

Aartsma, Peter; Asplund, Johan; Odland, Arvid; Reinhardt, Stefanie; Renssen, Hans

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1577-2021

Articles | Volume 18, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1577-2021

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1577-2021

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

Articles | Volume 18, issue 5

Research article

|

04 Mar 2021

Research article |

| 04 Mar 2021

Microclimatic comparison of lichen heaths and shrubs: shrubification generates atmospheric heating but subsurface cooling during the growing season

Peter Aartsma, Johan Asplund, Arvid Odland, Stefanie Reinhardt, and Hans Renssen

Download

Final revised paper (published on 04 Mar 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 04 Nov 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of Paper', Anonymous Referee #1, 25 Nov 2020
- AC1: 'Response to Referee 1', Peter Aartsma, 18 Dec 2020
RC2: 'Referee comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 30 Nov 2020
- AC2: 'Response to Referee 2', Peter Aartsma, 18 Dec 2020
RC3: 'Manuscript review', Anonymous Referee #3, 30 Nov 2020
- AC3: 'Response to Referee 3', Peter Aartsma, 18 Dec 2020

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (19 Dec 2020) by Paul Stoy

AR by Peter Aartsma on behalf of the Authors (06 Jan 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (07 Jan 2021) by Paul Stoy

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (21 Jan 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

It was a pleasure to read this paper again and see the changes made by the authors. In particular, I was pleased to see a list of hypotheses at the end of the introduction. I think this structures the paper more logically and frame the discussion later on. Despite this being a single-site study, it was nice to see some additional context about the importance of the findings to other tundra regions and an increased number of citations about microclimate studies in the biome at large. With these changes, I think the article now more appropriately fits the scope of the journal. I am also pleased to see the reframing of ‘large-scale climate’ as ‘microclimate’, as this better fits the terminology within this field of research, particularly when contrasted against microclimate.

The statistics are now more appropriately displayed - in particular Table 2 now contains more relevant information such as the slope and error. The figures now look clearer and more professional, and I am pleased to see that some figures have been moved to supplementary materials. I also agree with the change of title - I think the new title more accurately reflects the findings of the paper. I believe the paper is now ready to be submitted, with only a few minor technical corrections:

Figure 2 - would it be possible to add the black ‘blobs’ to the ABCD labels in the photograph as they are in the transect diagram? I think this would make the diagram slightly more readable.

Line 230 - Maybe a more informative subtitle than ‘Day vs night’? Perhaps ‘net radiation differences in daytime vs night’?

Figure 4 - would it be possible to make the lichen plot yellow slightly darker? I find it hard to make out the exact limit of these bars because its quite similar to the white background

Hide

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (25 Jan 2021)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (25 Jan 2021) by Paul Stoy

AR by Peter Aartsma on behalf of the Authors (28 Jan 2021) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

In the literature, it is generally assumed that alpine lichen heaths keep their direct environment cool due to their relatively high albedo. However, we reveal that the soil temperature and soil heat flux are higher below lichens than below shrubs during the growing season, despite a lower net radiation for lichens. We also show that the differences in microclimatic conditions between these two vegetation types are more pronounced during warm and sunny days than during cold and cloudy days.