Temporal variability and driving factors of the carbonate system in the Aransas Ship Channel, TX, USA: a time series study

McCutcheon, Melissa R.; Yao, Hongming; Staryk, Cory J.; Hu, Xinping

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4571-2021

Articles | Volume 18, issue 15

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4571-2021

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4571-2021

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

Articles | Volume 18, issue 15

Research article

|

09 Aug 2021

Research article |

| 09 Aug 2021

Temporal variability and driving factors of the carbonate system in the Aransas Ship Channel, TX, USA: a time series study

Melissa R. McCutcheon, Hongming Yao, Cory J. Staryk, and Xinping Hu

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Final revised paper (published on 09 Aug 2021)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 01 Feb 2021)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on bg-2021-19', Anonymous Referee #1, 17 Feb 2021

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://bg.copernicus.org/preprints/bg-2021-19/bg-2021-19-RC1-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2021-19-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Melissa McCutcheon, 05 Apr 2021
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://bg.copernicus.org/preprints/bg-2021-19/bg-2021-19-AC1-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2021-19-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on bg-2021-19', Anonymous Referee #2, 25 Feb 2021

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://bg.copernicus.org/preprints/bg-2021-19/bg-2021-19-RC2-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2021-19-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Melissa McCutcheon, 05 Apr 2021
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://bg.copernicus.org/preprints/bg-2021-19/bg-2021-19-AC2-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2021-19-AC2

Peer review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (08 Apr 2021) by Tyler Cyronak

AR by Melissa McCutcheon on behalf of the Authors (09 Apr 2021) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (19 Apr 2021) by Tyler Cyronak

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (21 Apr 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Thank you for your careful consideration of and thoughtful responses to the reviewer comments. I think this revised manuscript is in much clearer, and the re-organization was helpful in terms of readability. I have a few additional minor comments, listed below.

Line 87 and 96: Define the acronym ASC at the first mention of Aransas Ship Channel (line 87, instead of line 96)

Line 328: Missing ( before “Table S1)”.

Line 349: The spring continuous data that differs in sign from the discrete data has a tremendous SD. Were there outliers in the data that could be removed to improve this stat?

Line 513: Which studies specifically? Would like to see citations here.

Line 608: Specify which time scale – I believe you’re talking about seasonal here. Saying “on seasonal time scales” instead of “on certain time scales” would make the contrast with diel time scales (the following sentence) clearer.

Line 712: I think it’s important to emphasize again that it supports the validity of long-term discrete sample collection, because short-term sampling would not capture interannual variability in the region.

Supplemental line 68: This mention of “buildup of respirational products” had me wondering about biofouling in the cooler – was there any evidence of biofouling, either in the cooler or on the submerged sensors, during the biweekly maintenance? Important to consider how this would impact measurements over time, if so.

Supplemental line 93: I believe this should be Table S6 instead of Table S5.

Supplemental lines 104-105: This is repetitive from the previous paragraph – potentially an editing error. Could include the discussion of offsets and SDs in the previous paragraph instead.

Something to consider: there is a lot of overlap between the results/discussion of the continuous and discrete samples, and including both types of data is a bit clunky at times. Because you make the point that long-term discrete sampling schemes capture interannual variability and are representative of the continuous sampling data, you could just focus on the discrete sampling set in your results/discussion where possible (seasonal variability and controlling factors). Diel variability results/discussion would focus on the continuous data, of course. This might improve readability and remove excess length. There are some slight differences between continuous and discrete data, but since you conclude that discrete is representative of continuous, it would be okay to ignore those differences. This would necessitate a major revision, so it’s just a suggestion.

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RR by Melissa Ward (05 May 2021)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (05 May 2021) by Tyler Cyronak

AR by Melissa McCutcheon on behalf of the Authors (19 May 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (04 Jun 2021) by Tyler Cyronak

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (15 Jun 2021) by Tyler Cyronak

AR by Melissa McCutcheon on behalf of the Authors (21 Jun 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (28 Jun 2021) by Tyler Cyronak

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Short summary

We used 5+ years of discrete samples and 10 months of hourly sensor measurements to explore temporal variability and environmental controls on pH and pCO₂ at the Aransas Ship Channel. Seasonal and diel variability were both present but small compared to other regions in the literature. Despite the small tidal range, tidal control often surpassed biological control. In comparison with sensor data, discrete samples were generally representative of mean annual and seasonal carbonate chemistry.