keep methods- climate sensitivity paragraph in discussion?

[teixeirak]

This refers to the paragraph starting with.... "While our approach identifies similar climate sensitivities to those that would be identified using conventional methods (Figs. 2, S11-S14; Table S5), it differs in some substantive ways. "

I'm opening this issue to tally the (mixed) responses of coauthors:

• EQM: For me, this raises the question about differences between the 2 approaches, and which is better (for whatever question one might ask)? It might be worth stating why the tree-level analysis is better for analyses of forest productivity. | If this paragraph is kept, it’s probably worth stating the benefit of pooling species at a site.
• JTM : I like it but I could see the argument for excluding it. I wonder if you could talk about the window analysis a bit more here. It’s not really a focus of the paper right now and there are a lot of supplemental figures related to the window of sensitivity. Figure 2 show that the timing is also similar between traditional and this method but a more nuanced response is possible with this method. There has been some recent work (some of it I was a part of) looking at timing of drought response and I suggested some other things in the intro. This could be a neat angle to add and then you can reduce the text that highlight methodological differences here. ... Just trying to think of a way to talk about different findings rather than difference that show similar results.
• PB: fine with keeping it
• Bianca : I like this paragraph because the more clarity for the reader, the better, this breaks it down in layman's terms
• Jim L: no (to removing)
• BlueCats: I think it can be removed. Most of the discussed things have been already pointed elsewhere.
• PC: maybe shorten it but of course I wouldn't delete, it is interesting to see the differences
• JB: I don’t find it super compelling but at the same time, you are comparing and contrasting this approach to traditional dendro over the next few paragraphs so I could see a reviewer picking up on not including these differences if you don’t mention them but mention other ones…
• EG: I think you can keep it, maybe shortening although to me also sound more like results than discussion.
• NP: 50:50 on this section. Depends on if you need space. If you are ok with space, leaving in is ok to me

[teixeirak]

For the record, here's the paragraph prior to removal:

While our approach identifies similar climate sensitivities to those that would be identified using conventional methods (Figs. 2, S11-S14; Table S5), it differs in some substantive ways. First, in determining the primary climate drivers (step 1; Fig. 1), we consider the full sample of individual trees, as opposed to a chronology in which variance has been standardized and the individual cores have been averaged (REFS (NEIL)). Some differences in variables identified and the slope between growth and climate are to be expected given the methodological differences (Appendix S4); however, as a whole the identified drivers and directions of response are consistent with conventional methods (Figs. 2, S11-S14; Table S5). Another way in which the current analysis differed from conventional methods is that we pooled species by site when determining the primary climate drivers (step 1; Fig. 1). This decision was motivated by the expectation that differences in the most influential climate windows across species in one site would be minimal compared to cross-site differences (cf. Figs. 2, 3); however, analyses focused on interspecific differences could optimize species-specific climate sensitivity estimates by fitting climwin individually by species. (2nd sentence moved to methods)