PCLM-D-23-00158

Addressing Social Equity in Coastal Climate Adaptation Planning: A Case Study of Norfolk, Virginia

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Michel,

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.

As noted, this research has promise and potential. With that said, this manuscript needs to be seriously revised for it to be considered for publication in PLOS Climate. I agree with the reviewers that there needs to be a more thorough explanation of the study's contribution and significance straightway at the beginning of the paper (introduction). There also needs to be a more robust discussion of the paper's methodology and approach, including a clear explanation of the sampling procedure and interview protocol. Beyond that, a serious omission is the lack of local citizens or businesses represented in the interview population. This needs to be rectified or at the very least explained in detail given the articulation in the paper of the importance of stakeholder involvement in coastal resilience. Please also address other important questions and requests by the reviewers.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 19 2024 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,

Lily Hsueh, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Arizona State University 

Academic Editor, PLOS Climate

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

Journal Requirements:

1. Please note that PLOS CLIMATE has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, all author-generated code must be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse.

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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

Reviewer #3: 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: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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: This paper uses interviews with people in Norfolk, VA, to assess how well coastal resiliency planning is addressing social equity and environmental justice concerns. It is an interesting contribution to the literature given the growing interest in considering social equity among other goals when doing any kind of environmental or infrastructure project. I have the following 4 main comments which I hope can help improve the manuscript.

1) I think it would be helpful to have more discussion on how the interviewees were selected. I was surprised that after the intro laying out how important it is to consider a broad array of stakeholder viewpoints in coastal resilience, there weren’t any local citizens or businesses represented in the interview population. The authors did note that this would be a place for more study in the future, which is true. But I was hoping for a better understanding of how they did select the specific people to interview for this study.

2) Lines 115-116. Can the authors give more details about how the managed retreat buyout programs in the US perpetuate social inequalities and displacement. An example or more details here would be very helpful.

3) Lines 439-442. Can you share any examples of the RAFT tool and how it has been effective? It would be helpful to have more on this tool since the authors are claiming this is an improvement but there is not a lot of discussion of how it is an improvement and evidence that it has worked well in some places. More details on the development, use, and effectiveness of this tool would strengthen the discussion.

4) Similar comment for the ODU Resilience and Adaptable Communities Partnership. If the authors want to point to this partnership as an advancement and improvement, it would be good to give more details of what the Institute is doing and what some of the successes have been. How effective has the program been? Why has it been effective? How is it different from other approaches? These additional details would strengthen the discussion and the main message of the paper.

Additional comments

1) In lines 70-79 it would be useful to mention hybrid approaches for coastal resilience. Natural and nature-based approaches or features (NNBF) are of great interest to this Administration and of growing interest as natural climate mitigation and/or adaptation strategies world-wide. So, it would make sense to mention them in this paragraph as well. One example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901115000799 )

2) Line 73-74 The sentence is a bit awkward. Perhaps “Some examples of smaller scale adaptation strategies that focus on human systems rather than environmental include raising homes…”

3) Line 109. The “One such approach…” intro does not follow from the previous sentence. The previous sentence was not talking about tools that include equity but was saying that the tools often don’t. So, I think a different phrase is needed to start this sentence. Perhaps, “One approach that does explicitly account for social equity is…”

4) Table 1. There needs to be closing quotes after the Example 3 in Environmental NGOs.

Reviewer #2: There indeed needs further research on measuring social equity in climate actions. However, this manuscript failed to provide the insights needed to the field. The data is poorly described and analyzed. The qualitative data should have in-depth content analysis that identified concepts and build up to new theories. For example, table 1 listed the quotes of definitions by each stakeholder group. The qualitative analysis will require further coding and syntheses to develop new insights from those words of "data."

The discussion on the equity score is interesting but lack of sources and descriptions on those redlining zones and how those indicators are measured and what it means to create the equity score. Then how does that align with authors' research study.

Since this research is largely based on qualitative data. Rigorous data analysis and synthesis, and implications for the greater concept and theory will be critical to make meaningful contributions to the field.

Reviewer #3: The article Addressing Social Equity in Coastal Climate Adaptation Planning: A Case Study of Norfolk, Virginia centers on a very important and timely topic, exploring how social equity is addressed in coastal climate adaptation planning. It is an intriguing effort, with a well-organized framework to investigate how to the characterize social equity in coastal adaptation planning at its foundation. My critiques are detailed below.

1. Please add a more complete explanation of the study’s new contribution, and why it is significant, in the Introduction section.

2. The author starts well with explaining a clear rationale for selecting Norfolk as case studies in the Case Study Selection section (p. 8). However, providing a table/diagram to show relevant demographic data for the selected community – including, perhaps, the proportion of the community located in the floodplain – would be helpful. Also, consider providing a figure or diagram to help the audience locate the study community.

3. Other limitations of the current article lay in the Methodology/Approach:

a. Please explain in more detail and provide citations for your interviews (p. 9).

b. What is your sampling procedure to identify and interview participants? what is the sample size, and how many of them participated in the interviews, and why were they appropriate interviewees?

4. In the Conclusion section, please explain what new knowledge your study brings to the field—that is, how your study is generalizable. Can you please tell the audience a little more about the implications for planning research and practice? This will make for a much stronger conclusion.

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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: Siyu Yu

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[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-23-00158R1

Addressing Social Equity in Coastal Climate Adaptation Planning: A Case Study of Norfolk, Virginia

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Michel,

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.

You have received excellent and constructive feedback from three independent reviewers. Here are my pointers on how to move forward for the next revision:

1) Please include new discussion on how to address the inherent tension between greater diversity and inclusivity in adaptation decision-making and the lack of consensus and the influence of local priorities and power dynamics. As Reviewer #3 points out, the greater the inclusion of diverse stakeholders into the process the more likely there could be antagonistic views, values and visions from one another. 

2) Please include an acknowledgement and new discussion about the common pitfalls that could arise with uncritical inclusive and participatory approaches. Participation itself is not a panacea if issues of (mis)representation, tokenizing, and extractive forms of engagement that exacerbate social inequities, as pointed out by Reviewer #3.

3)Structure, case selection, and writing: 

—Please add sign posts in the literature review to help the reader navigate disparate ideas. 

—Please articulate more clearly why this study is a representative case for social equity — Reviewer #3 has given useful suggestions for doing so. 

—Please elaborate on the justification for the exclusion of non-expert local citizens from the interview process, including a reason why non-citizens, indigenous and homeless peoples are not part of the inclusive planning.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 19 2024 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,

Lily Hsueh, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Arizona State University

Academic Editor, PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please note that PLOS CLIMATE has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, all author-generated code must be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse.

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):

Dear authors,

You have by now received excellent and constructive feedback from three independent reviewers. Your revised manuscript is much improved from the original manuscript, as the first two reviewers have pointed out. While Reviewer #3 has recommended a Major Revision, I have granted you a “Minor Revision”. With that said, Reviewer #3’s suggested improvements are relevant. Here are my pointers on how to move forward for the next revision:

1) Please include new discussion on how to address the inherent tension between greater diversity and inclusivity in adaptation decision-making and the lack of consensus and the influence of local priorities and power dynamics. As Reviewer #3 points out, the greater the inclusion of diverse stakeholders into the process the more likely there could be antagonistic views, values and visions from one another.

2) Please include an acknowledgement and new discussion about the common pitfalls that could arise with uncritical inclusive and participatory approaches. Participation itself is not a panacea if issues of (mis)representation, tokenizing, and extractive forms of engagement that exacerbate social inequities, as pointed out by Reviewer #3.

3)Structure, case selection, and writing:

—Please add sign posts in the literature review to help the reader navigate disparate ideas.

—Please articulate more clearly why this study is a representative case for social equity — Reviewer #3 has given useful suggestions for doing so.

—Please elaborate on the justification for the exclusion of non-expert local citizens from the interview process, including a reason why non-citizens, indigenous and homeless peoples are not part of the inclusive planning.

[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 #3: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

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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 #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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 #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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 #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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: Authors addressed my comments well and I think the manuscript can now be acccepted.

Reviewer #3: This revised manuscript is much improved, due to the additional explanations added to the literature review and methods sections. My thanks to the authors for making these changes. I believe the manuscript is ready to publish.

Reviewer #4: Review comments to the author are provided in an attachment.

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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: Yes: Ariana Eileen Sutton-Grier

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

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[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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: renamed_6cb17.docx

PCLM-D-23-00158R2

Addressing Social Equity in Coastal Climate Adaptation Planning: A Case Study of Norfolk, Virginia

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Michel,

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.

There are no substantive changes recommended. That said, I agree with the reviewer's editorial suggestions in your manuscript preparation for a quality publication.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 09 2024 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,

Lily Hsueh

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please note that PLOS CLIMATE has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, all author-generated code must be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse.

2. 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 #4: All comments have been addressed

**********

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 #4: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #4: 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 #4: No

**********

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 #4: 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 #4: The authors have done a great job attending to my first-round of review comments and I appreciate the thoughtful and rigorous work that was undertaken to the major concerns. In this revised version, the aims/purpose of the study are much clearer, the literature review is well organized and enhanced with the addition of the maladaptation section, and there is far greater transparency into the research process and power-dynamics of the researchers-and-researched.

While the paper is much improved, I would still encourage further minor revisions. These comments are far less substantive and more suggestive towards the goal of ensuring a high-quality publication.

First, regarding the literature review, while the theory section is improved in-terms of organization and structure, it could still use some fine tuning in regards to making transitions between subsections smoother and ensuring a narrative flow rather than a listing of reviewed papers. This is minor, but will be helpful to keeping the main thread of the paper sharp and readers engaged.

Second, the methodology section would benefit from a slight reordering of information. Beginning with the ethics subsection feels a bit premature as the study design has not yet been introduced. I recommend starting with the section 3.2 and renaming this sub-title something more reflective of its contents, i.e. “Case Study Design” rather than “Case Study Selection” which is more limited. The ethics sub-section may fit well at the end of Section 3 “Methods”, or perhaps the authors see a way to weave it in-between the methods sub-sections. Either way the main issue is to introduce the study design prior to describing ethical considerations of said design.

Third, in the findings section the paper provides rich qualitative interview data, which provides great empirical insights to the literature on adaptation planning and governance. Where interview quotes are provided, it would helpful if the authors included an in-text caption at the end of each of them, with the interview date and place at minimum. I recommend seeing other ethnographic or qualitative studies for examples on citational formatting for interview data.

Overall, I have very much enjoyed reading and learning from this paper and believe it will make strong contributions to the literature on equity in adaptation planning in the coastal US (and beyond).

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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 #4: No

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[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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: renamed_de8e7.docx

Addressing Social Equity in Coastal Climate Adaptation Planning: A Case Study of Norfolk, Virginia

PCLM-D-23-00158R3

Dear Dr Michel,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Addressing Social Equity in Coastal Climate Adaptation Planning: A Case Study of Norfolk, Virginia' 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,

Lily Hsueh

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):