Reply to comment by J. S. Selker et al. on 'Capabilities and limitations of tracing spatial temperature patterns by fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing'

摘要

We thank J. S. Selker et al. (Comment on "Capabilities and limitations of tracing spatial temperature 1 patterns by fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing" by Liliana Rose et al., hereinafter cited as "Selker et al. [2014]") for their insightful comment on the Rose et al. [2013] technical note, which provides a helpful perspective on some instrumental performance aspects of Fiber-optic Distributed Sensing (FO-DTS). As Selker et al. [2014] observe correctly, interpreting the results of FO-DTS requires thorough understanding of its underlying physical processes and technological principles. In our opinion, this has to include a critical discussion of the potential uncertainties inherent to the interpretation of FO-DTS results. We agree that detailed knowledge of instrumental performance parameters as discussed in Tyler et al. [2009] and Selker et al. [2014] is essential, only, in contrast to what is suggested by Selker et al. [2014], the technical discussion provided in Rose et al. [2013] does not focus on the analysis of instrument specific FO-DTS performance but goes beyond that. It quantifies uncertainties in interpretation of FO-DTS results for signals of variable spatial extent (here called signal size). The discussion in Rose et al. [2013] follows the rationale that, when applying FO-DTS in the field, the actual spatial extent of a signal is usually not known and hence, interpretation of signal size and signal intensity (the difference to ambient temperature conditions) are not independent from each other, in particular for smaller signal sizes.