PCLM-D-22-00080

Cloudiness delays projected impact of climate change on coral reefs

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Gonzalez-Espinosa,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 22 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Lin Liu

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Review1

This paper reveals an interesting and important perspective of climate change impact on coral bleaching. I have several concerns on the method and interpretation to be addressed:

1. I think the results are more important than the author's interpretation. Clouds apparently delay bleaching in any scenario for ~5 years. This indeed means a weakening of the thermal effect. The overwhelming effect is caused that the % change has reached 100% can cannot increase any more for any case, other wise the DHM-only would always be higher than Cloud. Please revise main text and abstract.

2. The cloud model is built using total cloud amount, but clouds may have different effect among cloud types, e.g., cloud height and optical depth. I would suggest to use MODIS data and build the model with low, middle. high clouds and/or thin, medium, thick clouds. A comparison between total cloud and cloud types might be interesting. You can refer to theses papers for the details.

For observations of interannual variability:

Marchand, R. Trends in ISCCP, MISR, and MODIS cloud‐top‐height and optical‐depth histograms. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 118, 1941-1949 (2013).

For future projections:

Zelinka, M. D., Klein, S. A. & Hartmann, D. L. Computing and partitioning cloud feedbacks using cloud property histograms, Part II: Attribution to changes in cloud amount, altitude, and optical depth. J. Clim. 25, 3736-3754 (2012).

3. I would suggest to add a figure of cloud change to understand Figure 2. A advanced figure with changes in different types of clouds would be much better to show the dynamics involved. Here an enhanced convection is found in the warm-pool region.

4. Overall, the results are too short and methods too long. Please pursue more analyses following the above points.

5. Please rearrange the figure order.

Revewer2

The topic of this study is interesting. Although the existing understanding is that coral bleaching is mainly caused by the damage of heat stress such as Marine Heat Waves (MHWs), the authors discuss the mitigation effect of future changes in cloudiness on coral bleaching owing to reduce the damage from incoming light radiation, which is undoubtedly novel, attractive, and worth exploring. However, this study does not show a rigorous theoretical foundation and lack necessary analysis on the relationship between the cloudiness and coral bleaching. The main sticking point lies in the flaws in the explanation of causality and it’s hard to show the reasonability of the methods, which is somewhat disappointing. Therefore, the manuscript needs to be substantially improved. Because this study is mainly based on the consideration that cloudiness can prevent or reduce the damage to coral from the direct light (short wave radiation) reaching the sea surface, the following key questions need to be clarified or considered by the authors.

1. How does light radiation damage coral and cause coral bleaching?

2. How does light radiation and extreme high sea water temperature (e.g., MHWs) contribute to coral bleaching, respectively?

3. What is the relationship between historical coral bleaching events and the spatial-temporal distribution changes in cloudiness that affects the light radiation intensity over coral reef waters? This is the premise to study the effect of future cloudiness changes on coral bleaching under different climate scenarios. Unfortunately, the study didn’t provide the related concern information, so the project results of future cloudiness changes under different climate scenarios on coral bleaching mitigation are not convincing.

Some specific comments

1. The conclusion and discussion of the article, e.g., as described in Line 286-289, under RCP 4.5, cloudiness cannot work or slow down the coral bleaching, when the sea water temperature rises by 1 °C. Please consider: This is because the effect of 1 °C on coral bleaching is much greater than that of cloudiness to slow down the light radiation, or some something else. In addition, under RCP2.6, the sea temperature is also expected to rise 1 °C in future. Under this warming condition, why and how can cloudiness not fully impact the coral bleaching? In this case, does cloudiness have no effect on slowing down coral bleaching? Is there any contradiction?

2. Line 294-295: “Consideration of additional driving variables, like incoming light and clouds, is particularly critical for identifying potential climate change refugia.” Without clarifying the role or contribution of cloudiness or incoming light in coral bleaching, this discussion is meaningless, and it is difficult to explain the role of cloudiness changes in the selection of refugia. Moreover, the study also didn’t present the future spatial-temporal changes of cloudiness over coral reef waters under different climate scenarios.

3. L295-298：”These projections find the central and south Pacific, including parts of French Polynesia, and the central equatorial Pacific, including the Republic of Kiribati's Gilbert Islands, the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands, are regions with the highest likelihood of cloud protection during future thermal stress". It is noted that, the water areas in French Polynesia and the other waters experienced serious coral bleaching. In the absence of analysis basis for the above problems, such conclusions or discussions are of little significance.

Review3

The paper by González-Espinosa et al is timely and well written and I congratulate authors on improving our understanding of including cloudiness in the projection of coral bleaching under future climate change. I only have one small but important issue and concern which is stated as follows: the most significant results shows that the mitigating effects of cloudiness on bleaching frequency and severity is declining from low to high emission scenarios. This clearly tells us that dealing with the root of climate change, that is curbing carbon emission, is the most important way to save coral reefs worldwide. However, I did not see those implications throughout the ms. I would strongly suggest the authors to include such a statement in the abstract as well as discussion.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This paper reveals an interesting and important perspective of climate change impact on coral bleaching. I have several concerns on the method and interpretation to be addressed:

1. I think the results are more important than the author's interpretation. Clouds apparently delay bleaching in any scenario for ~5 years. This indeed means a weakening of the thermal effect. The overwhelming effect is caused that the % change has reached 100% can cannot increase any more for any case, other wise the DHM-only would always be higher than Cloud. Please revise main text and abstract.

2. The cloud model is built using total cloud amount, but clouds may have different effect among cloud types, e.g., cloud height and optical depth. I would suggest to use MODIS data and build the model with low, middle. high clouds and/or thin, medium, thick clouds. A comparison between total cloud and cloud types might be interesting. You can refer to theses papers for the details.

For observations of interannual variability:

Marchand, R. Trends in ISCCP, MISR, and MODIS cloud‐top‐height and optical‐depth histograms. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 118, 1941-1949 (2013).

For future projections:

Zelinka, M. D., Klein, S. A. & Hartmann, D. L. Computing and partitioning cloud feedbacks using cloud property histograms, Part II: Attribution to changes in cloud amount, altitude, and optical depth. J. Clim. 25, 3736-3754 (2012).

3. I would suggest to add a figure of cloud change to understand Figure 2. A advanced figure with changes in different types of clouds would be much better to show the dynamics involved. Here an enhanced convection is found in the warm-pool region.

4. Overall, the results are too short and methods too long. Please pursue more analyses following the above points.

5. Please rearrange the figure order.

Reviewer #2: The topic of this study is interesting. Although the existing understanding is that coral bleaching is mainly caused by the damage of heat stress such as Marine Heat Waves (MHWs), the authors discuss the mitigation effect of future changes in cloudiness on coral bleaching owing to reduce the damage from incoming light radiation, which is undoubtedly novel, attractive, and worth exploring. However, this study does not show a rigorous theoretical foundation and lack necessary analysis on the relationship between the cloudiness and coral bleaching. The main sticking point lies in the flaws in the explanation of causality and it’s hard to show the reasonability of the methods, which is somewhat disappointing. Therefore, the manuscript needs to be substantially improved. Because this study is mainly based on the consideration that cloudiness can prevent or reduce the damage to coral from the direct light (short wave radiation) reaching the sea surface, the following key questions need to be clarified or considered by the authors.

1. How does light radiation damage coral and cause coral bleaching?

2. How does light radiation and extreme high sea water temperature (e.g., MHWs) contribute to coral bleaching, respectively?

3. What is the relationship between historical coral bleaching events and the spatial-temporal distribution changes in cloudiness that affects the light radiation intensity over coral reef waters? This is the premise to study the effect of future cloudiness changes on coral bleaching under different climate scenarios. Unfortunately, the study didn’t provide the related concern information, so the project results of future cloudiness changes under different climate scenarios on coral bleaching mitigation are not convincing.

Some specific comments

1. The conclusion and discussion of the article, e.g., as described in Line 286-289, under RCP 4.5, cloudiness cannot work or slow down the coral bleaching, when the sea water temperature rises by 1 °C. Please consider: This is because the effect of 1 °C on coral bleaching is much greater than that of cloudiness to slow down the light radiation, or some something else. In addition, under RCP2.6, the sea temperature is also expected to rise 1 °C in future. Under this warming condition, why and how can cloudiness not fully impact the coral bleaching? In this case, does cloudiness have no effect on slowing down coral bleaching? Is there any contradiction?

2. Line 294-295: “Consideration of additional driving variables, like incoming light and clouds, is particularly critical for identifying potential climate change refugia.” Without clarifying the role or contribution of cloudiness or incoming light in coral bleaching, this discussion is meaningless, and it is difficult to explain the role of cloudiness changes in the selection of refugia. Moreover, the study also didn’t present the future spatial-temporal changes of cloudiness over coral reef waters under different climate scenarios.

3. L295-298：”These projections find the central and south Pacific, including parts of French Polynesia, and the central equatorial Pacific, including the Republic of Kiribati's Gilbert Islands, the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands, are regions with the highest likelihood of cloud protection during future thermal stress". It is noted that, the water areas in French Polynesia and the other waters experienced serious coral bleaching. In the absence of analysis basis for the above problems, such conclusions or discussions are of little significance.

Reviewer #3: The paper by González-Espinosa et al is timely and well written and I congratulate authors on improving our understanding of including cloudiness in the projection of coral bleaching under future climate change. I only have one small but important issue and concern which is stated as follows: the most significant results shows that the mitigating effects of cloudiness on bleaching frequency and severity is declining from low to high emission scenarios. This clearly tells us that dealing with the root of climate change, that is curbing carbon emission, is the most important way to save coral reefs worldwide. However, I did not see those implications throughout the ms. I would strongly suggest the authors to include such a statement in the abstract as well as discussion.

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes: Hui Huang

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PCLM-D-22-00080R1

Cloudiness delays projected impact of climate change on coral reefs

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Gonzalez-Espinosa,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

​

Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 04 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Lin Liu

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Ok.

Reviewer #2: The authors added the explanation about the influence of light on coral bleaching(L58-67), the projection on the total cloud trend (CLT trend) in the future (2015-2100) (L279-289) and its impacts on coral bleaching. And they analyzed the reasons for the cloud trend caused by climate internal variability (L280-281) and restated and interpreted the Figure3 (L318-324), which is positive and improves the quality and readability of the manuscript. However, the revised manuscript and authors’ clarification seems didn’t fully address the main concerns, that is, the relationship between historical coral bleaching events and the spatial-temporal distribution changes in cloudiness that affects the light radiation intensity over coral reef waters? This is the premise to study the effect of future cloudiness changes on coral bleaching under different climate scenarios, although the authors claimed that the future changes of cloud projection rather than the historical observations agreed with the past coral bleaching (L336-342). In other words, from the perspective of historical observation, it is necessary to analysis the corresponding relationship between the spatial changes of cloudiness and coral bleaching episodes in time series, detect and analyze the possible quantitative impact mechanism of cloud change on coral bleaching, which can provide a solid basis and sufficient persuasion for the algorithm in this study. Therefore, I would like to suggest again that the following aspects could be considered in this study: (1) to investigate the historical changes in spatial distribution of cloudiness and coral bleaching episodes and their quantitative relationships in the past decades; (2) to analysis the impact mechanisms of cloud changes on coral bleaching associated in the temporal-spatial distribution changes with other possible factors such as marine heatwaves, which could be helpful to quantitatively explain how cloud changes reduce the effects of light and ocean heatwaves on coral damage and bleaching; (3) to use the coral bleaching episodes in parts of French Polynesia and other places which could be used as evidences to further prove the relationship between the historical changes of clouds and coral bleaching events that have yet to be analyzed by the authors.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PCLM-D-22-00080R2

Cloudiness delays projected impact of climate change on coral reefs

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Gonzalez-Espinosa,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 17 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Lin Liu

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: The quantitative relationship and dynamic mechanism from the detection and attribution analysis of historical changes are generally applied to model projection. The projection results obtained would be highly convincing, which is not only the basic logic in using model analysis to project future changes, but also a key issue that cannot be avoided. At present, it might be a little difficult to analyze the quantitative relationship and mechanism between the spatial-temporal variation of high and low cloudiness and coral bleaching due to the less completed dataset. The authors used the statistical analysis method and defined the Cloudy Refugia Index, indicating that the sheltering effect of cloudiness on coral reefs could also regarded as another meaningful attempt. The authors basically addressed the most concerns. The revised manuscript is suggested to be accepted subjecting to addressing a few minor suggestions listed below.

1) Line 129: ‘Threee’.

2) Line 144: What does the “DHM:CLTa” mean? How do authors consider the interaction of the two variables?

3) Line 161: 100 ° x 100 ° lat-long grid resolution? Please verify it.

4) Line 222 and Table 1: Please explain the definition of these two terms, “accuracy” and “Kappa”.

5) Line 280, I would suggest to add the statistical significance test in Figure 4.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Cloudiness delays projected impact of climate change on coral reefs

PCLM-D-22-00080R3

Dear Mr. Gonzalez-Espinosa,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Cloudiness delays projected impact of climate change on coral reefs' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team. 

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact climate@plos.org.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Lin Liu

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):