PCLM-D-23-00058

Less adverse impacts on crop yield in West Africa under climate change in the new CMIP6 climate simulations ensemble

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Benjamin Sultan

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 18 2023 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.

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• 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'.
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• 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,

Girma Gezimu Gebre

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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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: No

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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: No

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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: I have reviewed your manuscript on the impacts of climate change on crop yields in West Africa using climate change projections from CMIP5 and CMIP6 and the SIMPLACE crop modelling framework. I found this study to be relevant and believe it adds valuable insight and is worth publishing. However, I would like to suggest some minor revisions to improve the clarity and robustness of your findings.

Firstly, I recommend including page and line numbers for easier reference in future revisions. Additionally, please ensure consistent formatting for terms such as CO2 and on whether to use UK or US English spelling (e.g., fertilisation vs fertilization).

Introduction: The review Carr et al., 2022 Environ. Res. Lett. 17. may be relevant for the introduction to address the impact of simulating adaptation strategies in crop yield projections

Section 2.2: you mention that the Growing Degree Days (GDD) were computed using the base temperature for maize. I recommend justifying or adjusting this approach, as the base temperature for maize may differ from that of millet and sorghum, which could potentially affect the results.

In Section 2.5, a brief explanation of what different crop varieties mean for their sensitivity to temperature and precipitation would be helpful to the reader for understanding the implications of this factor.

Section 2.6 has a confusing structure. I suggest reorganising this section for clarity, specifically by providing a coherent explanation of how statistical differences are measured. I am not sure how you tested the significant change in the first step. The section also includes a confusing sentences starting with “To do, …..”

Section 4: I recommend sub-sectioning it to improve readability. Potential sub-sections could include evaluation, differences between CMIP5 and CMIP6, and limitations. Additionally, it would be useful to include a brief discussion on why there are differences between the CMIP5 and CMIP6 in terms of precipitation and temperature projections and what these differences imply for the usefulness of crop yield projections.

Overall, your study presents important findings and, with these minor revisions are worth publishing.

Reviewer #2: In this manuscript, Sultan et al. analyze future yield of three important but under-studied crops—tropical maize, millet, and sorghum—under three different future climate scenarios using the SIMPLACE model. In addition, they evaluate how the results depend on whether climate forcings are taken from the ensembles of CMIP5 or CMIP6. They find that, in general, CMIP6 produces more optimistic results than CMIP5, but that projected yield changes can still be negative under CMIP6 for certain scenarios.

This manuscript has the potential to be an important contribution to the literature, given the paucity of studies looking at these crops. However, I have a number of questions and suggestions about the analytical methods and interpretation of results. I thus suggest this manuscript be reconsidered after major revisions.

See attachment for detailed comments.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: renamed_721f7.pdf

Less negative impacts of climate change on crop yields in West Africa in the new CMIP6 climate simulations ensemble

PCLM-D-23-00058R1

Dear Dr. Benjamin Sultan

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Less negative impacts of climate change on crop yields in West Africa in the new CMIP6 climate simulations ensemble' 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,

Girma Gezimu Gebre

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):

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: All comments have been addressed

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: All my comments have been carefully considered. In my view, no further revision is necessary. This is a very interesting and relevant paper which I recommend for publication.

Reviewer #2: Thanks very much for your revisions; you've done a great job addressing our comments. A couple of minor things: (1) "grd" typo at line 228; (2) "and and" at line 298.

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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

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