Response to Reviewer Comments回答审稿人的意见.doc

Response to Reviewer Comments We thank both the reviewers for their thoughtful/useful comments and suggestions. Their comments have improved the manuscript effectively. We have included almost all of their suggestions and below we present a point-by-point response to their comments. Reviewer A General Comments 1. Comment on assumptions of linear regression, using a linear regression as opposed to other nonlinear models like artificial neural network, nonlinear regression etc..? We have checked the distribution of the predictors, and we can report that they are all Normally distributed (figure not shown), so is the Thailand summer monsoon rainfall. Thus, the key assumption of Normal distribution for Linear Regression is satisfied. Neural network and nonlinear regression models require large sample sizes. While the sample size in this research is relatively small for LOCFIT it does not suffer to the same extent as other nonlinear models. Furthermore, LOCFIT, being “local” in nature has the capability to capture any feature (linear or nonlinear) present in the data. We found strong linear correlation between the summer rainfall and its predictors (Table 1). Hence, Linear Regression model was used as a benchmark – besides, it is one of the most popular methods in practice. 2. Why CCA type models were not considered as a benchmark.. We thank the reviewer for pointing the two references on CCA, which we have included in the narrative. CCA type models are better suited for predicting a dependent field (i.e. rainfall at several stations) from field(s) of independent variables (e.g., Tropical SST, SLP etc.). In this paper we are predicting a single time series (i.e. the Thailand summer rainfall index) hence regression based models, such as the ones used here are apt. 3. Issue of non-stationarity…. We agree, that if the relationship between the Thailand summer rainfall and ENSO and other Indo-Pacific predictors changes in time then new predictors have to be identified.