Frequency and intensity of palaeofloods at the interface of Atlantic and  Mediterranean climate domains

Wilhelm, B.; Vogel, H.; Crouzet, C.; Etienne, D.; Anselmetti, F. S.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-299-2016

Articles | Volume 12, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-299-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-299-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 2

Research article

|

17 Feb 2016

Research article |

| 17 Feb 2016

Frequency and intensity of palaeofloods at the interface of Atlantic and Mediterranean climate domains

B. Wilhelm, H. Vogel, C. Crouzet, D. Etienne, and F. S. Anselmetti

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Final revised paper (published on 17 Feb 2016)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 23 Oct 2015)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC C2364: 'Reviewer comments', Gerardo Benito, 18 Nov 2015
- AC C2728: 'Response to reviewer #1, Gerardo Benito', Bruno Wilhelm, 21 Dec 2015
RC C2473: 'Referee comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 23 Nov 2015
- AC C2731: 'Response to anonymous reviewer #2', Bruno Wilhelm, 21 Dec 2015

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (22 Dec 2015) by Jürg Luterbacher

AR by Bruno Wilhelm on behalf of the Authors (22 Dec 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (06 Jan 2016) by Jürg Luterbacher

RR by Gerardo Benito (07 Jan 2016)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (25 Jan 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Comments to the revised version of the manuscript ‘Frequency and intensity of palaeofloods at the interface of Atlantic and Mediterranean climate domains’ authored by Wilhelm et al.

The authors addressed in detail and carefully my previous comments (Referee#2), I very much appreciate it. I still have a few comments to some of the changes.

A) Modifications according to my previous ‘major remarks’

1) Deposit thickness as proxy for flood intensity

I am now more confident that the layer thickness can be used as flood-intensity proxy. This is thanks to your elaboration in the methods part (L.172-185) and in the discussion part (L.485-490). In particular the fact that grain sizes <100 μm are not affected by sediment storage in the flood plain and that the background sedimentation is constant over time are good arguments in favor of the layer thickness as flood-intensity proxy.

For the new version I have three (i-iii) remarks:

i) Grain-size data:
I still think that Figure 2 is not appropriate for visualizing the grain-size results. Even if it will be in landscape format in the final paper version, the grain-size results are simply too small in this figure illustrating the entire sediment sequence. I therefore persist on my previous proposition to add a zoom over a 10-20 cm long core interval (or whatever length seems to be best, hard to see) to demonstrate the grain sizes within flood layers and within the background sediment. There are former Wilhelm et al. papers that do this nicely, thus it will not be much work. It looks like adding the zoom to Figure 2 is difficult. The better solution is probably to add another figure. For the whole discussion about the best proxy for flood intensity this is definitely worth it.

ii) L. 162: What do you mean with ‘grain-size proxies’? This is too vague. Either simply say grain-size analysis or elaborate more what you imply with ‘proxies’ in this context.

iii) L. 177: ‘appears’ instead of ‘appeared’

3) XRF counts as quantitative indication of element concentrations

Thanks for now using the term ‘intensities’ instead of ‘contents’ when describing element counts in the XRF data. This is more correct.

There is still one sentence that caught my attention:
L.158: ‘The areas of the element peaks obtained are proportional to the concentrations of each element (Tachikawa et al., 2011).’
This is a highly concluding sentence, implying that this situation applies to all sediment sequences and excluding all possible matrix, pore water, density etc. effects on the XRF counts. In addition, this sentence is supported by only one single study.
You should therefore reformulate and possibly elaborate a bit more.
The present sentence could for instance be replaced with: ‘Several studies could demonstrate that counts received from XRF core scanning are proportional to element concentrations if no important matrix effects due to pronounced lithology changes or variations of pore water volume and chemical composition are present (refs).’
-> Cartapanis et al. 2011, Paleoceanography, would be another study using an ITRAX scanner and applying calibration of counts through ICP-MS measurements.
However, I would propose you also search for a good reference working with lacustrine and not with marine sediments.

B) Further remark

Figure 4:
I am still wondering what MP stands for. Maximal peak? Would be a bit strange as a peak is usually maximal.
Why don’t you just omit the abbreviations and write the terms out (‘Chernobyl’ and ‘Bomb Peak’). There is enough space in the figure.

Referee Report: PDF

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by Editor) (02 Feb 2016) by Jürg Luterbacher

AR by Bruno Wilhelm on behalf of the Authors (03 Feb 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (04 Feb 2016) by Jürg Luterbacher

AR by Bruno Wilhelm on behalf of the Authors (04 Feb 2016)

Short summary

The long-term response of the flood activity to both Atlantic and Mediterranean climatic influences was explored by reconstructing the Foréant record. Both influences result in a higher flood frequency during past cold periods. Atlantic influences seem to result in more frequent high-intensity flood events during past warm periods, suggesting an increase in flood intensity under the global warming. However, no high-intensity events occurred during the 20th century.