PCLM-D-23-00160

A daytime monthly land surface temperature climatology of Miami-Dade County, Florida

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Muse,

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 Oct 20 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.

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,

Ahmed Kenawy, Ph.D.

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.

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. 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: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: N/A

**********

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

**********

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: The study entitled " A daytime monthly land surface temperature climatology of Miami-Dade County, Florida" provides interesting results which can be served as guide for other areas. It is recommended for publication incorporating the following suggestions:

1. The resources of some data should be mentioned such as (mean monthly air temperature, solar irradiance, and rainfall).

2. I recommend adding map of your study area to present more information for readers location of study area around the USA and the world.

3. Using workflow flowchart is highly recommended.

4. Please add the conclusion section.

Reviewer #2: The paper was conducted in a rush with an overall low academic level.

1. The investigation is forked with no focused scope or specific idea, research question, or assumption.

2. The key concept in the study was employed in a wrong way. The study depended on the surface urban heat island, which calculated as mean LST across the county. In fact, the SUHI has just two well-known measures, i.e., UHI intensity and footprint. So, this is a big flaw to use mean temperature as an indicator of the SUHI.

3. Although its principal role in the paper, the methodology was provided so terse without the required level of details. There were not any reported formulas or clear procedures. LST, NDVI, impervious surfaces, and statistical analysis were very poorly presented. Complete rewriting is required.

4. A key variable in the study (impervious surfaces) was determined using NDVI. In fact, there are specific remote sensing indices that can be used to delineate the urban impervious surfaces.

5. Statistical analysis is too simplistic and was incompletely provided.

6. There was not any clarification or illustration of the surface air temperature weather stations used in the study.

7. The MS structure and numbering system needs extensive modifications and reorganization.

8. Maps and charts are poor and inadequate. They failed to communicate the study results. Artistic and cartographic considerations are completely absent. Visual enhancements are critically required. A map of the study area does not exist.

9 Table do not provide a complete pictures of the paper quantitative analysis.

Reviewer #3: This study constructed a 10-year land surface temperature dataset for the local area based on Landsat satellite data, and analyzed the spatiotemporal distribution and relationships with environmental factors of the surface urban heat island effect. The research has some application value in revealing changes in the surface thermal environment of the region. However, there are deficiencies from the perspective of innovation and scientific question identification. My specific comments are as follows:

Major Comments:

1. The innovation of the research is limited. The study employs relatively traditional methods, constructing a 10-year LST climatology of Miami using Landsat data and simply analyzing relationships with environmental variables. While the research has applied value, it lacks innovation in scientific question identification and methods. I suggest the authors highlight the value of this work for urban planning and public health preparedness from a climate change perspective, and articulate the novelties of this study compared to previous related work.

2. The analysis of the heat island formation mechanisms for the study area is insufficient and seems superficial. The paper lacks in-depth discussion on the differences between heat islands in various climate types. The results analysis section focuses more on descriptive results, without elucidating the scientific significance of these descriptions for further understanding the urban thermal environment in humid climates. For example, differences in mechanisms between humid and arid climate heat islands, and potential unique effects influencing the Miami heat island, are not clearly discussed. I suggest the authors reorganize the results analysis and strengthen the investigation of the heat island formation mechanisms for this region.

3. The Landsat LST data used in the paper has a resolution of only 100 meters, which may be insufficient for analyzing intra-urban thermal environment variations. Meanwhile, satellite data has deficiencies in accuracy compared to station data. I suggest the authors consider incorporating higher resolution satellite products or increasing ground observation data from stations for comparative analysis.

4. There is a lack of observational data characterizing weather impacts. The meteorological station observations used in the paper are limited and cannot adequately depict the influences of weather systems on the heat island. The data mainly uses temperature without precipitation and other meteorological data, which also restricts mechanism analysis to some extent.

5. The selection of environmental variables could be further expanded. The current study mainly examines LST relationships with NDVI and land use, so I suggest expanding the analysis to effects of other variables like urban geometry and population distribution.

Specific Comments:

1. The background section content is too dense and could be streamlined to more representative content or moved to the discussion section.

2. The descriptions of variable selection and data processing in the methods section need to be more focused, avoiding simple repetition.

3. The discussion section could expand the analysis of heat island formation mechanisms, climate impacts, etc. based on the results. The current discussion is too general.

4. The formats of the references are inconsistent and need to be carefully checked.

**********

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: 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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewer_PCLM-D-23-00160_reviewer_Miami-Dade County, Florida.docx

PCLM-D-23-00160R1

Land surface temperature and its limits as a proxy for urban heat exposure in a seasonally wet climate

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Muse,

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 Feb 23 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,

Ahmed Kenawy, Ph.D.

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.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Two of the reviewers who are experts in the field raised some substantial comments that must be carefully considered by the authors.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: 

Please see the attached file.

Reviewer #2: 

The new revised version of the manuscript largely differs from the original one. The paper's scope is now more focused and deeper with specific and clear objectives. The results provided are significant/interesting and largely novel. However, the methodology is still below the required level. The following comments need further consideration.

1. The MS structure and numbering system are academically recognized in general, but some modifications are required. Structure the paper into the following main sections: Abstract, introduction, material and methods, results, discussion, and conclusion). Start the numbering process from the "Introduction", not from the "Abstract". Eliminate "Background" from the "Introduction" name. Completely remove section 3 "Background". Reintroduce subsection "3.1 Miami-Dade County Climate" as "Study area" subsection under the main section "material and methods".

2. The English language is largely proper. The wording is clear, direct, and straightforward. However, you should use the past tense to provide your own analysis, results, and discussion. For example, in the "Abstract", you provided the results using the present tense. Rewrite the section to provide your results. This is also valid for the results, discussion, and conclusions sections.

3. Since the study used Landsat 8 satellite imagery, an indication should exist in the paper title to describe its diurnal time frame and stress that the nocturnal conditions are not within the paper's scope.

4. Some required elements are missing from the "Abstract" section. These mainly include the datasets used in the study and the key methods and calculations. In addition, rewrite the section to provide your own results using the past tense.

5. In the methodology, there is a great undesirable mixing between the metadata of the datasets and analytical procedures. This overlap should be separated.

6. An additional subsection of "Datasets description" should be added to the section "Data and methods". The new subsection is intended to provide a full description of the datasets utilized in the paper.

7. Where are the locations of local weather stations within the region used to retrieve SAT observations? A map and table are mandatory.

8. In subsection 4.1. "LST Mapping through Time", why did you provide details about The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)?

9. In subsection 4.2. " Spatial Analysis of LST", why did you provide details about impervious surface data and?

10. The methodology is in critical need of reorganization.

11. Why basic formulas of LST and NDVI calculations were ignored? Merge the equations in the sections, not in the appendix.

12. Merge the supplementary figures within the text.

13. Change the section "Miami-Dade County Climate" into "Study area" subsection under the main section "material and methods". Start the section with Fig. 2 "study Area" followed by Fig. 1 "climate conditions". Provide a description of the study area, including basic data and information about location, site, area, population, etc.

Reviewer #3: 

Despite the modifications made by the author, the innovativeness of this study remains limited. Investigating the spatiotemporal relationship between land surface temperature (LST) and air temperature has been done extensively in previous studies across different climate regimes. The novelty of focusing on a humid subtropical climate is incremental but does not provide significant new insights.

The analysis relies solely on statistical methods to establish correlations between LST and air temperature. More in-depth investigation into the physical mechanisms governing the LST-air temperature relationship under different moisture conditions would strengthen the study. For example, analyze the surface energy budget components under wet vs dry conditions. Unfortunately, in the revised manuscript, I did not observe any improvement by the author in this regard.

The scope is geographically limited to a single county in Florida. Expanding the analysis to other humid subtropical climates would make the conclusions more broadly applicable. As is, the generalization of the results is limited.

There is a lack of hypothesis testing or rigorous statistical analysis to support the conclusions. The use of regression and correlation is very basic and does not provide deep insights. More advanced statistical approaches could reveal novel findings.

Minor comments:

1. The literature review lacks synthesis and critical analysis. The introduction reads as a disjointed list of past studies without integrating them into a cohesive rationale for the present study.

2. The writing style is very repetitive and needs condensing in many parts. The frequent use of acronyms also hampers readability.

3. The quality of figures and tables is poor and lacks sufficient clarity. Axis labels, font sizes, and resolutions should be improved.

4. The conclusion section is abrupt and does not provide an insightful summary of key findings and implications.

To summarize, I cannot recommend publication in the present form due to limitations in novelty, analysis methods, geographic scope, hypothesis testing, and conclusions.

**********

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

Reviewer #3: 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-23-00160R2

Daytime land surface temperature and its limits as a proxy for surface air temperature in a subtropical, seasonally wet region

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Muse,

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 . 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,

Ahmed Kenawy, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Some material included in your submission may be copyrighted. According to PLOS’s copyright policy, authors who use figures or other material (e.g., graphics, clipart, maps) from another author or copyright holder must demonstrate or obtain permission to publish this material under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License used by PLOS journals. Please closely review the details of PLOS’s copyright requirements here: PLOS Licenses and Copyright. If you need to request permissions from a copyright holder, you may use PLOS's Copyright Content Permission form.

Please respond directly to this email or email the journal office and provide any known details concerning your material's license terms and permissions required for reuse, even if you have not yet obtained copyright permissions or are unsure of your material's copyright compatibility. 

Potential Copyright Issues:

Fig 1: please (a) provide a direct link to the base layer of the map (i.e., the country or region border shape) and ensure this is also included in the figure legend; and (b) provide a link to the terms of use / license information for the base layer image or shapefile. We cannot publish proprietary or copyrighted maps (e.g. Google Maps, Mapquest) and the terms of use for your map base layer must be compatible with our CC-BY 4.0 license. 

Note: if you created the map in a software program like R or ArcGIS, please locate and indicate the source of the basemap shapefile onto which data has been plotted.

If your map was obtained from a copyrighted source please amend the figure so that the base map used is from an openly available source. Alternatively, please provide explicit written permission from the copyright holder granting you the right to publish the material under our CC-BY 4.0 license.

Please note that the following CC BY licenses are compatible with PLOS license: CC BY 4.0, CC BY 2.0 and CC BY 3.0, meanwhile such licenses as CC BY-ND 3.0 and others are not compatible due to additional restrictions. 

If you are unsure whether you can use a map or not, please do reach out and we will be able to help you. The following websites are good examples of where you can source open access or public domain maps: 

* U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) - All maps are in the public domain. (http://www.usgs.gov) 

* PlaniGlobe - All maps are published under a Creative Commons license so please cite “PlaniGlobe, http://www.planiglobe.com, CC BY 2.0” in the image credit after the caption. (http://www.planiglobe.com/?lang=enl) 

* Natural Earth - All maps are public domain. (http://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/)

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 #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #4: (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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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 #2: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Reviewer #2: 

The Authors responded adequately to most comments provided. The overall level of the MS is now satisfactory. I accept publishing the MS after addressing the following comments (without further approval of me):

1- Do again revision to the formula numbering in the methodology.

2- Academic writing rules recommend providing the paper's analysis, results, and discussion using the past tense. This is more recommended in climate, where datasets are historic, and then the results are.

Reviewer #4: 

The article compares land surface temperature (LST) to surface air temperature (SAT) in Miami-Dade County. They find seasonal differences between the two and utilize linear regressions to compare. I agree with other reviewers’ concerns about novelty but feel that there are several things the authors could do to enhance the contribution of their research.

Major comments:

1. The introduction section is too short (should be at least 4 paragraphs). Previous reviewers have pushed back on the novelty and importance of this work. The introduction is your chance to show how this research fills a gap in the literature or makes other contributions. I would suggest using the introduction to expand on the point made later in the paper that understanding the difference between LST and SAT would be useful for heat response. How would it change heat response? What could be made better with a better understanding?

2. USGS provides a LST dataset (https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions/landsat-surface-temperature) as part of their Analysis Ready imagery. This would be a better dataset to use to ensure that differences between LST and SAT are not a function of the way the LST data was corrected. For example, in figure 7, RSMAES census block group has much lower LST but the census block boundary covers considerable water area. When the NDVI was calculated for the census block group, did water get masked out first? In the methods section, the water masking is described after the NDVI calculations and on lines 217-220 it looks like some water pixels still made it through the analysis due to “satellite limitations”. “Satellite limitations” should be clarified.

3. Lines 222-223 – Calculating mean LST values for a small CBG is probably okay, but what about large CBGs or ones what include water within their boundaries? It would be more appropriate to take the mean LST value for a specific buffer size around the weather station instead of using the whole CBG because the size of the CBGs are different.

4. Section 3.2 does not add to the existing literature (SUHI has been conducted many times and many places), this section could be cut to focus on the comparison of LST with SAT and its implications for heat response. Things that could be worth building out for the SAT and LST comparison are: 1) examining the role of precipitation, 2) how the trends vary over the years in the study period (instead of lumping all of the years together in the analysis), and 3) greater enumeration and explanation of how the findings for this paper are useful for heat response.

Minor comments:

5. Line 123 should state the study period in year/month/day instead of just “study period” this is the first time the study period is discussed in the methodology section.

6. Figure 3 - Add boundary of Miami-Dade county to the map. Looking at later maps, these weather stations do not seem to be spatially distributed across the county.

7. Line 204 – Please provide a justification and citation for why 5% was used as the impervious threshold.

8. Figure 10 –Right now this figure doesn’t make much sense. If I am interpreting it properly, this figure could make more sense if it were lines with margins of error.

9. Line 331 – I’m not seeing figure 11 referenced in the text. Either add an in-text reference (i.e., Fig. 11) or remove. Since this paper has a lot of figures, I would recommend removing it.

PCLM-D-23-00160R3

Daytime land surface temperature and its limits as a proxy for surface air temperature in a subtropical, seasonally wet region

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Muse,

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.

==============================

Editor: The reviewer is satisfied with the revised version of the manuscript. The reviewer raised only one minor comment that should be addressed before making a final decision regarding this submission.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 21 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,

Ahmed Kenawy, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please amend your detailed Financial Disclosure statement. This is published with the article. It must therefore be completed in full sentences and contain the exact wording you wish to be published.

a. State the initials, alongside each funding source, of each author to receive each grant.

b. State what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role in your study, please state: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”

c. If any authors received a salary from any of your funders, please state which authors and which funders.

If you did not receive any funding for this study, please simply state: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.”

2. Some material included in your submission may be copyrighted. According to PLOS’s copyright policy, authors who use figures or other material (e.g., graphics, clipart, maps) from another author or copyright holder must demonstrate or obtain permission to publish this material under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License used by PLOS journals. Please closely review the details of PLOS’s copyright requirements here: PLOS Licenses and Copyright. If you need to request permissions from a copyright holder, you may use PLOS's Copyright Content Permission form.

Please respond directly to this email or email the journal office and provide any known details concerning your material's license terms and permissions required for reuse, even if you have not yet obtained copyright permissions or are unsure of your material's copyright compatibility. 

Potential Copyright Issues:

Figs 1, 3, 5 & 8: please (a) provide a direct link to the base layer of the map (i.e., the country or region border shape) and ensure this is also included in the figure legend; and (b) provide a link to the terms of use / license information for the base layer image or shapefile. We cannot publish proprietary or copyrighted maps (e.g. Google Maps, Mapquest) and the terms of use for your map base layer must be compatible with our CC-BY 4.0 license. 

Note: if you created the map in a software program like R or ArcGIS, please locate and indicate the source of the basemap shapefile onto which data has been plotted.

If your map was obtained from a copyrighted source please amend the figure so that the base map used is from an openly available source. Alternatively, please provide explicit written permission from the copyright holder granting you the right to publish the material under our CC-BY 4.0 license.

Please note that the following CC BY licenses are compatible with PLOS license: CC BY 4.0, CC BY 2.0 and CC BY 3.0, meanwhile such licenses as CC BY-ND 3.0 and others are not compatible due to additional restrictions. 

If you are unsure whether you can use a map or not, please do reach out and we will be able to help you. The following websites are good examples of where you can source open access or public domain maps: 

* U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) - All maps are in the public domain. (http://www.usgs.gov) 

* PlaniGlobe - All maps are published under a Creative Commons license so please cite “PlaniGlobe, http://www.planiglobe.com, CC BY 2.0” in the image credit after the caption. (http://www.planiglobe.com/?lang=enl) 

* Natural Earth - All maps are public domain. (http://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/)

Reviewer #4: 

The revisions by the authors have enhanced the manuscript. I noticed one confusing sentence on line 470 (track change version). This sentence states, "For example, as compared to winter months at this time of day, where LST can better capture SAT values, LST may underestimate SAT by up to 3C during wet season months," but does not specify what "this time of day" is in the surrounding sentences. Once this has been corrected, the manuscript is ready for publication. I do not need to see the manuscript again after this change/before publication.

Daytime land surface temperature and its limits as a proxy for surface air temperature in a subtropical, seasonally wet region

PCLM-D-23-00160R4

Dear Mr. Muse,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Daytime land surface temperature and its limits as a proxy for surface air temperature in a subtropical, seasonally wet region' 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,

Ahmed Kenawy, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

***********************************************************

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):