the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 30 Sep 2025
From Farm to Planet: The InSEEDS World-Earth Model for Simulating Transitions to Regenerative Agriculture
Abstract. Industrialised agriculture and its externalisation of environmental costs have contributed to accelerating ecological degradation and the transgression of planetary boundaries. Vice versa, agriculture is increasingly affected by ecological pressures such as climate change. While sustainable approaches like Regenerative Agriculture offer promising alternatives, most studies focus on the biophysical impacts of individual practices and overlook the complex dynamics underlying their large-scale adoption. In particular, the roles of social-ecological feedbacks, tipping dynamics, and transformative change remain underexplored. To address this gap, we introduce the InSEEDS integrated World-Earth model – a novel co-evolutionary approach to simulating agricultural transitions that couples a process-based vegetation model (LPJmL) with an agent-based model of farmer decision-making. InSEEDS integrates socio-cultural, social-ecological, and biophysical dynamics and can be applied from local to global scales. Distinguishing between a traditionalist and pioneer farmer types, we analyse the adoption dynamics of conservation tillage as a key practice of Regenerative Agriculture. We find that social networks, ecological heterogeneity, and decision-making inertia play a critical role in determining transition dynamics. Adoption of conservation tillage yields overall positive effects on soil carbon and crop yield, though outcomes are strongly context-dependent. InSEEDS provides a foundational tool that opens up avenues for understanding complex human-environment interactions in land-use transformations and advancing the next generation of World-Earth models.
Competing interests: Some authors are members of the editorial board of Earth System Dynamics.
Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors. Views expressed in the text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.- Preprint
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Status: open (until 05 Jan 2026)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-4079', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Nov 2025
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RC2: 'Reply on RC1', Anonymous Referee #1, 11 Nov 2025
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Please excuse: The subsection numbers got messed up while copying. It should be, according to the ESD review criteria:
- Relevance to ESD Scope
- Novel Concepts, Ideas, Tools, or Data
- Substantial Conclusions
- Scientific Methods and Assumptions
- Results Supporting Interpretations and Conclusions
- Reproducibility
- Credit to Related Work
- Title Clarity
- Abstract
- Structure and Presentation
- Language Quality
- Mathematical Formulae, Symbols, Abbreviations, and Units
- Content Requiring Revision
- References
- Supplementary Material
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4079-RC2
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RC2: 'Reply on RC1', Anonymous Referee #1, 11 Nov 2025
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RC3: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-4079', Anonymous Referee #2, 27 Dec 2025
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The manuscript contributes an innovative methodological contribution to a pressing topic: the integration of cross-scalar, interdisciplinary, modelling techniques and hence absolutely warrants publication. My background is in modelling in a more general sense and not in the specific model types employed in the research and as such I found the descriptive contextualisation’s used to support the mathematical descriptions of the agent-based component particularly helpful. I do not have any detailed critiques of the methodology, rather, in my opinion, the biggest limitation of the manuscript is that the writing could benefit from substantial improvement. Another area that I feel needs attention is the results section discussing country level dynamics, which makes a number of claims that I feel are not currently adequately justified by presenting the underlying data.
With respect to the writing, I would say that key areas for improvement for the authors would be to: try to simplify sentences as much as possible, really consider the order of information being presented, and whether wording can be more concise or clear. A problem that occurs very frequently through-out is that many sentences are structured such that the key subject is placed in the final clause rather than leading the sentence, which is particularly problematic when many acronyms are being referred to in a single sentence. In addition, there are a substantial number of sentences with grammar or syntax errors and others for which the clarity could be improved by more appropriate word choice. There are also many statements for which citations should be provided where there are currently none.
I recognise that it is never helpful when reviewers simply point out flaws without providing suggestions for improvements, so in the technical corrections below I have provided detailed explanations and suggestions for corrections on a ‘case by case’ basis. I have done this for the majority of the manuscript, up until the end of the results, but given the extent of the issues it is too time-consuming for me to do it for the discussion as well.
Please don't be disheartned by my comments, your research is making a very important contribution and as such it is crucial that your readers be able to understand it as clearly as possible.
To quickly address the key review topics outlined by EGU:- Does the paper address relevant scientific questions within the scope of ESD?: Yes
- Does the paper present novel concepts, ideas, tools, or data?: Yes
- Are substantial conclusions reached?: Yes, although some are perhaps overstated based on the results presented.
- Are the scientific methods and assumptions valid and clearly outlined?: Yes
- Are the results sufficient to support the interpretations and conclusions?: In some cases, I would suggest no, there are some interpretations that could benefit from better justification by the actual data underlying the results.
- Is the description of experiments and calculations sufficiently complete and precise to allow their reproduction by fellow scientists (traceability of results)?: Yes
- Do the authors give proper credit to related work and clearly indicate their own new/original contribution?: There is a point in the results section where the manuscript starts to show results from another companion paper that is 'in prep'. As a reader, I was left confused as to where the two peices of research had diverged and what actually consitituted one vs. the other. I think the manuscript would benefit from laying out in the methods section where is the clear division between the research being presented and the parallel research also pending publication.
- Does the title clearly reflect the contents of the paper? Yes
- Does the abstract provide a concise and complete summary? Yes
- Is the overall presentation well structured and clear? Yes there are clear sections but I feel the overall structure could be improved, particularly some of the sub-sections in the results could do with clearer/more indicative titles.
- Is the language fluent and precise? No, as I have tried to highlight in a lot of my comments in technical corrections, there is a lot of problems with grammar, syntax and word choice through-out. There is also a tendency to use a few too many buzz words which are not well defined and sometimes applied inconsistently e.g. world-earth, co-evolutionary, etc.
- Are mathematical formulae, symbols, abbreviations, and units correctly defined and used? As far as I can tell yes.
- Should any parts of the paper (text, formulae, figures, tables) be clarified, reduced, combined, or eliminated? Yes, I have highlighted sections in the introduction and 'methods' section which I think are a little superfluous as they provide further justification/ background on dimensions of the research that are not really essential.
- Are the number and quality of references appropriate? No, I have highlighted in the technical corrections many setences which require citations for which there are none provided.
- Is the amount and quality of supplementary material appropriate? Yes
Technical corrections:
To avoid confusion with line numbering between versions, for each point I have quoted sections/sentences that have issues and then tried to explain the problem and make suggestions for improvements.
Abstract:
• ‘Transgression’ from a grammatical perspective is fine but in common parlance it does carry quite a normative connotation (i.e. that the act is morally wrong). Perhaps better to use a more objective term e.g. ‘bypassing’ or ‘exceeding’.
• “tipping dynamics”: If word limit allows then perhaps tipping point dynamics would be “clearer.
• “are strongly context-dependent.»: This feels a little vague because you have introduced what the context (geographical?) of the study is. If there sufficient space in the abstract it would be nice if this was clear.
Introduction:
• “Co-evolutionary dynamics between humans and the Earth system are the central characteristic of the Anthropocene, a new epoch in the evolution of the Earth system (Schellnhuber, 1999; Crutzen, 2002; Steffen et al., 2011). Agricultural systems are a prominent example of the co-evolutionary interactions in World-Earth Systems (Meyfroidt et al., 2022).” The intro introduces a lot of terminology overall so I think it would be good to be selective where possible. Why use ‘Earth System’ in one sentence and then ‘World-Earth System’ in the next? In fact, is World-Earth System a typo because I cannot find the phrase in the Meyfroidt et al. citation?
• “The green revolution is a specifically stark example this process in the 1950s and 1960s, it intensified land use and agriculture, enabling global population growth and prosperity.”: Typo, should be ‘example of’, also grammatically it would be more accurate to say ‘it led to’ or ‘it resulted in’ because the green revolution itself did not directly intensify land use rather it was the process which enabled it. Finally it would be appropriate to use a citation for this statement.
• “As a result, the intensification of agricultural practices contributes significantly to environmental degradation (Pretty et al., 2018; Benton and Bailey, 2019).” The lack of a clear tense makes this sentence read a little strange, I think it would be good to either say ‘has contributed’ or ‘continues to contribute to’.
• “The result is the transgression of multiple planetary boundaries (PBs) – critical processes that sustain Earth System stability and resilience – such as biosphere integrity, land-system change, freshwater use or biogeochemical flows (Campbell et al., 2017; Richardson et al., 2023).” Same problem as the previous sentence, i.e. the tense is not clear, and in this case it is even more important because the boundary has either been crossed or not. Also, similar point to the usage in the abstract, ‘transgression’ is perhaps too weighted a term.
• “Soil degradation is among the most significant problems, as it entails a loss of soil nutrients and soil organic matter (SOM), followed by decrease in the soil’s water retention and infiltration capabilities.» For flow, make the link to the previous topic explicit, i.e. ‘In this respect, soil degradation…’ this is advisable because otherwise ‘problems’ is too vague on it’s own.
• “With increasing climate change and global warming, pressure from rising water consumption in the form of evapotranspiration and extreme weather events such as droughts and heat waves are also increasingly affecting agroecosystems,» : The usage of ‘water consumption’ reads slightly strangely here as the examples that follow are natural processes, especially evapotranspiration, whereas ‘consumption’ really implies a subject (i.e. humans).
• “Given the critical reliance of societies on food and other ecosystem services provided by agricultural systems, a systemic transformation is imperative to ensure agricultural productivity while maintaining or re-establishing the ecological resilience of these systems (Benton and Bailey, 2019).» Needs some form of qualification i.e. to ensure continued agricultural productivity’ or ‘to prevent further declines in…’
• “Most RA scholars and practitioners agree on soil health as»: Similar to above, this would benefit added qualification i.e. ‘agree that the maintenance/improvement of soil health is…’
• “While the inclusion of livestock is often practised in RA,” ‘Inclusion’ doesn’t quite fit correctly in combination with ‘practised’, better to be more specific i.e. ‘livestock farming’ or ‘rearing of livestock’. But for the flow of the whole sentence it would be better to switch the subjects i.e. While RA typically involves livestock farming it also is also applicable to…’
• “Soil health has repercussions on multiple scales and is often regarded as a key leverage point for planetary health (Montgomery et al., 2024).» This sentence feels very out of place with the preceding and subsequent sentences, it would fit much better when the importance of soil health is introduced in the previous paragraph.
• “Some scholars and practitioners explicitly include human, social, and societal dimensions in their definition of RA. Muller (2020) embeds RA within a broader paradigm he calls“regenerative development”, which comprises societal dimensions like politics and economy,” The wording here reads slightly off, the first sentence implies these elements are ‘included in’ the definition but then example instead situates RA within something broader (i.e. RA exists within regenerative development), which is in a sense the opposite.
• “While some dimensions, most prominently ecological, of RA practices are well-researched (LaCanne and Lundgren, 2018; Lal, 2020; Kassam et al., 2022),» Better flow to move the subject to the first clause, i.e. ‘While some dimensions of RA practices, most…’
• “the question of how transitions towards such systems can unfold is largely under-researched,» but what is the system in question? So far you have referred to RA practices which is not a system in itself, do you mean a system where RA is widely practiced/adopted?
• “There are several outstanding research questions, aimed at understanding how such transitions might unfold, including: What could adoption and therefore spreading dynamics of RA look like given different social structures or learning processes? Can social tipping points be reached in those transition processes, such that positive feedbacks lead to widespread and self-reinforcing adoption? How can resilient agricultural land systems be achieved globally—and how might the process of adoption differ across locations?
Overall, I find this paragraph too vague, as it uses too-many terms for which the definition is contentious or unclear and the authors don’t provide their own perspectives:
o First and foremost, if these are ‘outstanding’ questions it implies that they have been established by someone, but there are no citations for each or all of them?
o ‘spreading dynamics’ is from my knowledge not a established term in the literature but it’s also not clear enough as a standalone phrase I think better phrasing overall would something like: ‘How might the adoption of RA differ with respect to variations in social structures or learning processes’.
o ‘Social tipping points’ would require a citation.
o What explicitly are ‘transition processes’ in this context ? The overall process of transitioning from conventional Ag. To RA or something smaller scale?
o How is ‘transition’ different from ‘adoption’ when both are used in the same sentence?
o “How can resilient agricultural land systems be achieved globally—and how might the process of adoption differ across locations” Is a resilient agricultural land system one that specifically requires RA? If so you need to make this statement clear, also the 2nd clause feels redundant in light of the earlier statement regarding adoption dynamics.
• “The afore-mentioned research questions cannot be addressed by existing modelling approaches due to divergent model purposes and lenses.» This is a crucial piece of argumentation and hence requires citations, also ‘lenses’ could be more specific, are you referring to models only focusing on specific or limited dimensions of socio-cultural-environmental systems?
• “Social-ecological, for example agent-based modelling approaches, capturing human behaviour and social dynamics in nuanced ways, are often limited in their range of applicability and, in many cases, applied to single case studies”: Several small problems with grammar. Move the subject for improved clarity; ‘Socio-ecological modelling approaches, for example, agent-based models..’ But also the 2nd clause is not grammatically correct, my suggestion would be: ‘while capable of representing nuanced human behaviour and social dynamics, are often limited in their applicability beyond the specific case studies they are parametized/developed for.’
• “Albeit larger-, up-to-global scale modelling approaches, like integrated assessment models that aim to include human dynamics in their analyses, exist, their understanding of “the human" is limited. Their macroeconomic optimization approaches rest on the rational actor paradigm and omit scientific findings about alternative motivations and drivers in human decision-making (Browning et al., 1999; Hodgson, 2012; Otto et al., 2020).» The start of this sentence is problematic because the fact that it follows immediately from the discussion of agent-based models, and the use of ‘albeit’ implies that you are suggesting that IAMs are examples of agent-based models which is not wholly correct(some are, some aren’t). Instead, you need to make it clear that IAMs are another paradigm of socio-ecological model, typically operating at a larger scale (the phrase of ‘up-to-global’ is quite clunky) but this requires a simplification of decision-making. This would make the sentence read much clearer.
• “with a closed social-ecological feedback loop» This is too specific to be clear for lay readers, even for myself with an appropriate scientific background, I am not confident exactly what you mean by ‘closed’?
• “proof-of-concept models towards more complex, integrated models,” I think ‘integrated’ is not a good choice of adjective here because you have already established that a defining characteristic of these models is that they ideally integrate multiple systems so how is this a contrast to ‘proof of concept’ versions of these models, as surely to be considered successful proofs of concept these models would already be integrated?
• “which also consider biophysical preconditions and decision-making in a process-based manner.» A bit too vague, what is a process-based manner in this context?
• “A model built in the copan:CORE modelling framework consists of entities that interact with each other via processes (Donges et al., 2020).» Minor grammar correction with respect to ‘framework’ wording should be ‘according to’ or ‘with’ rather than ‘in’.
• “that integrates agent-based model components for socio-cultural and social-ecological
dynamics.» Minor grammar correction should be ‘to represent’ or similar instead of ‘for’.
• “This way, InSEEDS is able to model the human-land system more holistically than prior efforts,» Grammar, ‘this way’ is not quite correct, consider: ‘In this sense…’
• “allows to capture» Grammar: this formulation requires a subject i.e. ‘allows users…’ or to make it neutral rephrase too: ‘offers the possibility to capture…’
• “up-to global» Try to be consistent, earlier you use “up-to-global” (different punctuation) but also “up-to-planetary” (what is the difference?).
• “Investigating the adoption of regenerative land management practices is particularly worthwhile due to its potential to increase Earth system resilience. Given the central role of land system management in the global change dynamics of the Anthropocene (Steffen et al., 2011; Campbell et al., 2017), the InSEEDS model allows for the embedding of land(scape) regeneration within planetary and Earth system stewardship (Chapin et al., 2011; Steffen et al., 2018; Rockstrom et al., 2024).» In my opinion, this justification is a little superfluous, you make the point earlier regarding the importance of regenerative practices and overall the relevance/importance of the InSEEDs model is already clear to me as a reader. Given that the introduction is quite lengthy already and I have suggested points where it could be clearer, I would suggest perhaps removing these sentences to make more space.
• “The InSEEDS model captures interactions between social, ecological, and socio-cultural processes,» Through-out the manuscript I think there are some cases where terms are applied in perhaps a slightly inconsistent manner. For example, in this sentence, can social processes be considered meaningfully distinct from socio-cultural processes? and what about socio-ecological processes, which is another term that is used several times in the introduction? Perhaps, you could improve clarity if you were to more deliberately ‘set your terms’ in the introduction, for example by stating something along the lines of: ‘agricultural systems are subject to/shaped by interacting social, cultural and ecological processes and henceforth for simplicity we refer to these as X.’ This could help avoid some of the inconsistent application of terms and simultaneously allow you to be more concise.
• “and the feedback mechanisms that close the loop between ecological outcomes and social adaptation.” I have made a similar comment on the understandability of this phrase above, but linguistically ‘close the loop’ doesn’t quite make sense in this context as the feedback mechanisms are themselves the loop (i.e. in their absence there would be no loop) and hence they cannot be said to ‘close’ the loop.
• “the latter is a central cornerstone of many RA operations worldwide. Firstly, ‘operations’ is not so fitting a term here as it implies a more organised and deliberative activity whereas many real-world examples/applications of RA are likely quite informal and bottom-up in nature. Also grammatically the ‘: the latter is a’ is not quite correct. To address both I would suggest: ‘: with the latter being a cornerstone of many examples of the application of RA globally’.
• Figure 1: Generally I find it clear and helpful, a small suggestion is that the social cultural taxon contains “no residue cover” but this is meant to represent the alternative to conservation tillage which according to the preceding text is ‘conventional farming’ right? If so, better to be consistent and have that in the figure too. Also, you include some acronyms in the figure (e.g. for the taxons) but not for others such as CT, CY and CF, this would make the link to the text more explicit. Finally, if you think of the concept that a figure should be understandable in the absence of it’s caption, then it would be good if there was a logo/label for InSEEDS in the figure itself.
• “The combination of different soil conserving tillage systems like no till, in-row subsoiling or strip till, with residues left on the field that cover more than 30% of soil surface can be summarised under the term CT (SARE, 2020).” I would suggest reversing sentence structure for clarity, i.e. ‘We consider CT to include the combination of…’
• “Conservation Agriculture approaches, like CT, have been proposed as a fundamental cornerstone of RA systems (Kassam, 2023; Kassam and Kassam, 2024).» For me, this sentence is unnecessary as this point has been made in the introduction already.
• “Conservation 134 Agriculture approaches, like CT, have been proposed as a fundamental cornerstone of RA systems (Kassam, 2023; Kassam and Kassam, 2024). The InSEEDS model, prospectively, is designed to investigate transitions to RA systems that comprise a diverse set of land-use management practices that go beyond CT. We chose CT as our first representative RA practice based on the observation that, as a single practice, it can be regarded as one of the options with the widest potential for adoption and positive outcome on ecological indicators (Wang et al., 2006; Liang et al., 2025). In the following, we use the terms CT and RA interchangeably, and elaborate on their connection in Discussion Section (5).» I recognise that the manuscript is not strictly following an IMRD structure but the paragraphs that proceed this in the section very much read like conventional methods section text (i.e. objective presentation of model details). As such, this section then feels somewhat disconnected because it is returning to a more conceptual level/justification statements. For example, as a reader you have already made it clear to me why CT is important, I don’t need any further justification yet why you chose to implement this first vs. other RA practices within inSEEDS. It is good content, but I think it would be better placed in the discussion.
• “Nevertheless, Herzfeld et al. (2021) also showed that CT does not necessarily lead to an increase in SOC, a pattern that has been shown by Karstens et al. (2020).» because you are juxtaposing this example with the previous sentence it would be good if it was clear whether Herzfeld et al.’s result is from a real-world context or whether it was also generated from LPJmL? Also, for grammar/semantic correctness the last clause should be ‘a finding that was also observed by Kartstens…’ (finding not pattern because the example you are discussing can not said to be a pattern).
• “Slow responses of SOC levels to short-term agricultural management changes might play another role in the limited effects of CT practices in modelling studies.” Needs citations even if they are just the same studies as discussed as above.
• “Understanding and modelling the social dynamics of the adoption and spread of agricultural practices in farmer networks is a multi-disciplinary endeavour.» Citations needed.
• “The social feedback loop is characterised by agents observing the social norms present among their neighbours.» But what are some examples of ‘social norms’ in the context of your research? It would be good to give the reader some more insight here.
• “It is formalised as follows: The TPB posits that human action is driven by behavioural expectations BE—a combination of perceived behavioural control PBC and behavioural intention BI:” The first part of the sentence before the colon is redundant especially because the preceding clause also ends in a colon.
• “Following the spatial structure of the LPJmL gridcells, farmers consider the 8 gridcells adjacent to their own land, i.e., their Moore Neighbourhood of range 1, as their neighbours» At the moment, the sentence structure is slightly confusing as the last clause reads like it is missing a subject i.e. the neighbours... X… Better to invert the sentence structure and in simplify i.e. Within LPJmL, a given farmers neighbours are defined as…
• “These two components are weighted using ωAself andωAnbr respectively, and combined in the attitude-based evaluation of the agents’current land management success. Need to include the term ‘respectively so that it is explicit which notation corresponds to which concept from the previous sentence.
• “There is strong evidence suggesting the influence of social norms, which may be related to geographical proximity (neighbouring farms) or membership in certain groups, associations, or communities of practice, on the adoption of farming practices (Brown et al., 2018; Swart et al., 2023). Minor grammar problems with ‘suggesting’ better to re-formulate: There is strong evidence that social norms …. , can influence the adoption of farming practices.
• “the norm component’s contribution to the BE,and thus to a potential strategy switch, is larger compared to a case when only a slight majority (e.g., 5 out of 8 neighbours) practice CF» The ‘BE’ needs a clear subject (i.e. the farmer’s), reformulate: ‘The contribution of the norm components to a respective farmer’s BE and thus…’
• “The smaller the PBC value, the more inertia is introduced, which significantly reduces the likelihood of behavioural change.» But the inertia is not ‘introduced’ as the prior sentence is referring to it being set for different AFTs correct? If so better to just say ‘there is greater inertia’.
• “It serves as an approach to develop generic agent types to simulate up to global social-ecological, behavioural land-use ABMs. AFTs are based on the primary characteristics of roles (such as farmer, forester, or extensionist agent) and cognitive as well as behavioural processes (such as attitude formation, learning, imitation).» Both sentences require citations.
• “The distinction of different farmer AFTs is rooted in the notions that (a) land-use priorities and decision-making vary among different farmers (e.g., with respect to climate zones, socio-cultural environments, farm sizes and purposes, etc.) (Edwards-Jones, 2006; Singh et al., 2016), and consequently (b) transition pathways for those different farmers will be distinct (Maybery et al., 2005; Stringer et al., 2020). See red text for suggested improvements, particularly with regards to ‘groups’ in the last clause you have not explicitly established who these groups are i.e. you previously state farmers but not that they are grouped.
• “Many different farmer typologies exist (Burton and Wilson, 2006; Malek et al., 2019; Bartkowski et al., 2022).» Be specific, are you referring to modelling here? Because otherwise this statement is self-evident given the previous sentence.
• “investing in soil health can support the provision of stable yields in the longer run.» Citation needed.
• “This farmer type, additionally, was found to be “less concerned than other groups by problems, showing their enthusiasm for conservation agriculture" (Casagrande et al.,2016, p. 293).» Following on from the comment above, it is not clear in this sentence whether you are discussing a real-world farmer typology or a typology employed in modelling?
• “This conviction to improve soil quality can be mapped to (1) the emphasis on their own attitude and values as compared to the social norm, and (2) the relative importance of SOC as compared to CY parameters in our pioneer AFT.» Be more specific, yes of course it ‘can’ be mapped in this way but is this how you actually realised it? If yes, then say so.
• “Comparing the two learning processes and the resulting attitude sub-components, Anbr is given more importance and thus a higher ωAnbr in the case of pioneers.» Again, this is a small issue of the ordering of information in the sentence, the preceding sentence ends by bringing the focus to the pioneer AFT, and this sentence is describing the characteristic/configuration of the pioneers and hence it would be clearer to begin the sentence with the pioneer as the main subject and then describe the characteristic in relation to them.
• “In contrast to mere normative pressure, they are expected to be considerably influenced by social learning opportunities, and learn from their neighbours’ successes and failures using a different management strategy to compare their performance with their own. Several issues:
o Citation needed
o ‘In contrast to mere normative pressure’ is not grammatically/syntactically correct because there is no subject or action. Reformulate along the lines of ‘Rather than being solely influenced by normative pressure…’
o ‘using’ is unclear who is using and also ‘to compare their performance’ is redundant because you already say ‘successes and failures’, better to simply say ‘successes and failures in applying different management strategies to their own’
• “high belief about being capable of putting their intentions into practice.» Grammar issue with ‘about’, should read: High belief in their capability to put their intentions into practice’
• “With regard to non-farmer-specific strands of literature, this combination of AFT attributes can also be connected to the concepts of “innovators" and “early adopters" (Rogers, 1962) and“trendsetters" (Bicchieri and Funcke, 2018). Social science research shows that certain sub-groups or individuals tend to abandon predominant descriptive social norms and spearhead change, well before a descriptive norm tipping point is reached.” From my perspective you have provided ample other justification for the characteristics of the pioneer AFT and these sentences don’t substantially add to this. Given how long the manuscript is in general, I would recommend dropping these sentences.
• “traditionalist AFT would be more reluctant to adopt a novel management practice that is not well-established yet.» This sentence is confusing terms, the “traditionalist AFT” does not exist in reality, traditionalist farmers do but you are referring here to the conceptualisation of the traditionalist AFT in the abstract. Hence, it is not correct to say ‘would be more reluctant’ as this cannot be verified Instead, it should read, ‘should, in theory, be more reluctant…’
• “For each cell, the type of agent is determined probabilistically using a Bernoulli trial with the aforementioned probabilities for a cell being assigned a pioneer (S) or traditionalist (1−S) AFT.» The wording is quite awkward and it took me multiple readings to understand the sentence, the problem is ‘aforementioned’ which is not typically used when the probabilities you are referring to are in the first clause of the sentence (vs. being in a preceding sentence). Inverting the sentence content would make its meaning clearer: ‘The values of S and 1-S are used to determine the assignment of AFTs for each cell in the model state space by applying them as probabilities within cell-by-cell Bernoulli trials.
• “Most of the exact parameter values needed to calculate the decision making, i.e., the weights of N or A, cannot be based on quantitative empirical data, yet, due to a lack of such datasets for the parametrisation of the human component in World-Earth models (Arneth et al., 2014). Again, quite awkward wording makes the sentence hard to understand as ‘yet’ is often used in this manner to introduce a juxtaposition but here you mean it in a temporal sense. Reformulate: ‘While it would be theoretically possible to base parameter values for decision making on empirical data, such data is not yet available…’
• “Some of the parameters, like SOC and CY , attitude_own_land and attitude_neighbors, and norm and attitude, are weighted in relation to each other on the basis of the qualitative differentiation between AFTs: while the precise weights’ parameter values are not derived from quantitative empirical data, their parameter ranges (e.g., own attitudes are weighted higher than social norms in the pioneer AFT as compared to the traditionalist AFT) are based on qualitative AFT differences that can be found in the literature (see Chapter 2.2).» Several problems:
o Firstly, it is supposed to be a run on sentence from the preceding one but the sentence does not begin with an appropriate connective ephrase? i.e. you just said that the empirical data is not available yet, hence I would expect the next sentence to clearly state: The alternative to using empirical data is…
o Secondly, the sentence is very long and the use of both a colon as well as a parenthetical section in the subsequent clause makes it hard to understand.
o ‘weights’ parameter values’ doesn’t make sense grammatically and I can’t make a suggestion because I don’t clearly understand the difference between the weights and parameter ranges?
• “The following global simulation runs were performed for the sensitivity analysis and result generation: (1) The base run using the standard parametrisation laid out in Table 1.» This sentence is contradicting an earlier sentence in the section above: “The default values highlighted in Figure 3 and Table 1 are selected as a result of the sensitivity analysis shown in figure 4.1.» The first sentence (in the manuscript) suggests the parameter values were derived from the SA but the other sentence suggests exactly the opposite i.e. these were the values applied at the start of the SA. Which was it?
• “This is run is the foundation for the results presented in section” Grammar error
• “are obtained and used from Ostberg et al. (2023)’ Redundant wording.
• “Starting in the year 2023, LPJmL ceases to run as a stand-alone model, and is bidirectionally coupled with the ABM component through the copan:LPJmL framework.” Awkward wording: ‘ceases to run’ implies some internal error or change in the model or some outside circumstance when in reality it just that you introduced the bi-directional coupling at this point, also you need to be clear you are talking about simulation time and not reality. Being more specific and using simpler langaugse would improve clarity: ‘From the year 2023 in the simulations we introduced the bi-directional coupling of…’
• “The integration of LPJmL as an environmental (ENV) and an ABM as a socio-cultural and socio-metabolic (CUL & MET) component yields the InSEEDS model.” ‘yields’ is not appropriate because it implies that InSEEDS somehow arose autonomously from this process of coupling whereas in fact you designed this coupling to represent InSEEDs.
• I am not so familiar with the EGU formatting but as I have said previously the whole manuscript is very long and as such I feel like the detailed explanation of the sensitivity analysis method would be better placed as an appendix. You have a lot of concepts and model processes to relay while trying to keep the readers attention and for me, while it is obviously technically important, the sensitivity analysis is not central to the main message of the work.
• “Given the qualitative approach to parametrising the AFTs sketched in subsection 3.1, the subsequently presented results of the sensitivity analysis should be understood as demonstrating the dynamical interplay of the underlying parameters in order to validate the overall model behaviour and explore different model pathways, instead of quantitative insights based on a precise real-world model parametrisation.” Several issues:
o The sentence is overly long and complex, try to be much more simple and direct in your wording: ‘given that the model parametisation was qualitative the purpose of SA in this context is not intended to be consolidative (i.e. to identify objectively correct parameter values) but instead it is intended as an explorative process to validate overall model behaviour and demonstrate the dynamics it produces.’ What would also be important would be to cite some sources who have also applied sensitivity analysis for a similar purpose.
o ‘sketched’ is a strange turn of phrase because it literally implies drawing something which is not true it was written, so better to say ‘outlined’.
o ‘dynamical interplay’: There is a very subtle difference in meaning between dynamic and dynamical, bit in short say dynamical interplay is incorrect
because dynamical already encompasses the notion of interplay. On there hand ‘dynamic interplay’ would be correct.
• “To achieve this, a sensitivity analysis (SA) was conducted.” Why is this following the preceding sentence, because in it you have stated that you did SA?
• “were kept in the base run configuration” Be more specific, i.e. ‘used the values of’ because ‘kept in’ almost implies they were each within a range.Results:
• “results, to then introduce findings» Grammar: needs to be ‘before then introducing’ rather than ‘to’ in order to be correct.
• “The InSEEDS model system» Stay consistent with terminology: earlier you refer to the “InSEEDS model” but a “model system”, as used here, is a subtly different thing.
• “Its results for different parametrisation sets, as explained in Figure 3 and Table 2, are shown in the following.” Several problems:
o The figures do not “explain” the results they show or detail them.
o What is ‘the following’? there needs to be a subject here i.e. ‘in the subsequent paragraph’
o Again this is an example of a sentence that could benefit from being re-ordered: ‘Figure 3 and Table 2 detail the results of testing different parametrisation sets.‘ This is simpler and more concise and also as a reader I don’t need to know that you are going to explain these results to me, instead you can just do it.
o OK but after reading the sentence that follows are these actually ‘results’ or are they simply the values that were used for testing? There is a difference.
• ‘The effect of the pairwise variation of the named parameters on both biophysical (i.e., SOC and CY ) and social (i.e., spreading extend of RA practices) variables is shown in Figure 4.’ This sentence follows too abruptly form the previous, the juxtaposition needs to be clearer i.e. Figure 3 and table show the values tested and Figure 4 shows the implications of these values in terms of the biophysical and social outputs variables of the model.
• “We can observe that the variation of the norms and attitude weights (green) has the strongest impact on the simulation results– varying this weight produces the most significant difference in simulation results, especially considering the distinction ofrun intention_0 on the one side, and run intention_2 to intention_4 on the other side.” OK, you have started a new paragraph here and hence you need to be specific what figure you are referring too especially because in the last paragraph you have referred to two different figures.
• “yield the maximum share of RA practitioners,» Be careful, it is not the ‘maximum’ rather it is the ‘greatest observed share’ because testing other values could have led to greater shares, i.e. the maximum remains theoretical.
• “Figure 3. TPB weights (ω) that have been shifted along equal intervals within realistic ranges. There are 3 sets with each two ω for each different level of the TPB equation: (1) the variation of attitude and norm as the sub-components of behavioural intention (green), (2) the variation of social learning and learning from one’s own land as the sub-components of attitude (pink), and (3) the variation of soil and yield as factors in both learning processes (blue). ω intervals are highlighted for traditionalists (solid bard) as well as for pioneers (hatched bars).”
o Overall, the whole caption is quite confusing, I don’t understand what the values in the circles represent are the sets? If so why are there 4 for some and 3 for others. Also why use ‘level of the TPB equation’ these are not levels they are components or terms in the equation? It would be helpful to start from the highest level of organisation i.e. Figure 3 contains three sub-plots for each of the components of the TPB equations, within these each of the weights of the respective sub-components were varied in X sets for each of the Agent Functional types.
o Also, the description of what the blue bars represent in the figure caption does not align with the labelling in the figure itself, i.e. in the figure you use ‘ecolog. Performance’. Rather than say in the caption ‘in both learning processes’ which is superfluous instead you need to be explicit that you are referring to the soil and yield and the ‘ecolog. Performance factors’.• Figure 3 comments:
o As a reader I don’t fully grasp why the colours breaks are where they are and what they represent. Are they simply mean to represent a gradient between high and low values, if so why is a gradient not used? If they are supposed to demarcate sets, I don’t understand why the caption says there are three sets when there are four breaks?
o the x-axis label ‘agent parameter sensitivity shifts’ firstly should be below the figure with the actual axis values otherwise it could be confused with being a plot/sub-plot title but also the wording is strange are these are not shifts these are simply values (i.e. not representing a change)?
o For the sub-plot labels in the right, it would be more readable if they weren’t rotated, perhaps if they were displayed running horizontally from the top left corner of each respective box?
• “Figure 4. Global analysis of the impacts that parameter variations have on different model variables after a simulation run (year 2100). The parameter values of the depicted runs can be mapped to the colour scheme introduced in Figure ??. The blue runs depict a variation of the weighting of SOC and CY in the learning sub-components of attitude formation. The darker the blue, the higher CY , as opposed to
SOC, is weighted in the ecological evaluations performed by the farmers. The pink runs depict a variation of the weights attributed to social learning, and the observation of the agents’ own land, which together form the attitude component. The darker the pink, the higher social learning, as opposed to the evaluation of the agent’s own land, is weighted. The green runs depict a variation of the weights of social norm and attitude, which, taken together, form the agents’ behavioural intention. The darker the green, the higher social norms, as opposed to the farmers’ own attitude, is weighted.”
o First sentence, be more concise and precise in wording: ‘the impacts of parameter variations on model outputs variables at the end of the simulation time (2100)’
o Don’t refer to the lines primarily as ‘runs’ this is unclear for the reader. You should explicitly make the connection but from then on refer to them as what they physically are in the figure (lines): ‘The horizontal lines each represent specific runs, with the colour of the line mapping to the parameter values of the run as presented in figure 3.‘
o “The darker the blue, the higher CY , as opposed to SOC, is weighted in the ecological evaluations performed by the farmers” Grammar correction: ‘the greater CY is weighted in farmers ecological evaluations as oppose to SOC.
• “With parameter configurations placing only minimal emphasis on social norms, the attitude component, that considers the evaluation of ecological performance through social learning and the observation of one’s own land, is dominant in the decision-making function.» Unclear meaning, do you mean ‘within the parameter configurations that placed only minimal emphasis on social norms’? Also the whole sentence eis too long. It would be better to split into two with the explanation of what the attitude component represents, currently the 2nd clause, moved to a 2nd sentence. The most important thing is the result so bring this to the forefront.
• “The weighing of social learning and observing and learning from the dynamics present at the agent’s own land, which together form the attitude sub-component, has the second largest influence on model dynamics (attitude_0-4).» Again, invert the sentence to increase clarity: The factor that had the second largest impact on model dynamics was….’
• “Regarding ecological outcomes, the difference is less pronounced, with 2% higher SOC and CY levels of scenario (a) as compared to (b).” A and B should not in parentheses in this sentence, you have defined them previously.
• “All three indicators (adoption of CT, levels of SOC and CY ) increase steadily with the share of pioneers.» To vague, you have just been discussing results under each scenario in a comparative way but this sentence doesn’t make it clear which if any you are referring too? If it is across both scenarios then you need to be specific i.e. ‘Regardless of the scenario…’
• “The adoption of CT or CF practices, and therefore, the spatiotemporally resolved spreading dynamics of these practices can be analysed and illustrated from cell to up-to-planetary scales » Several problems:
o The sentence is wordy but this just makes it more cofnsuing: What is resolved about these dynamics? Do you simply mean the spatial and temporal dynamics of the spread of these practices. Why are you deliberately separating adoption from spreading in the sentence?
o What is the proof that this statement is true? Your results haven’t shown it yet and there is no citation?
o Firstly, ‘cells’ is a specifically biological term, but it is confusing because you are referring to raster or grid cells as they are realized in the model. However, it is also confusing because raster cells can be at any resolution and hence the comparison with global is meaningless because one is an abstraction and one is a real scale?
• “– companion paper to this publication –« Too short: ‘which should be considered as a companion paper…’
• “focuses on possibilities of global spreading analyses.” But again how is spreading different from adoption? and also the wording is unclear and clashes with the previous sentence. You have already made the claim (albeit unsupported) that analyses of global scale adoption are possible but now you are saying that they are investigating the possibility of this, why would they investigate the possibility if we know it is possible already?
4.2.1 National scale
• “Here, we want to dive further into more nuanced dimensions of the co-evolutionary dynamics, which can more easily be observed by zooming into results on smaller spatial scales.” But what is co-evolving? You haven’t made this clear yet? The models within the framework of the adoption of different practices? Also ‘zooming in’ is too colloquial, it would be clearer to say: ‘exploring results at a finer spatial resolution’. But more importantly is it actually a finer scale that is most important here or is it also exploring contrasts in dynamics from different locations at a finer spatial scale?
• “Applying a default parametrisation (Table 1), the coupled model interactions with focus on the main variables, behaviour, SOC and CY are shown for three different countries, as extracts of the global simulation (Breier et al., in prep) in Figure 5.” Again, think carefully about the order of information, reducing unnecessary words and adding relevant details (i.e. the country names) to make the sentence clearer: ‘Figure 5 shows the results of behaviour, SOC and CY for three different countries, Paraguay, Spain and South Africa. These results come from InSEEDS simulations under default parameter values: (Table 1), performed as part of Breier et al. (in prep).
• “The chosen countries, respectively, showcase interesting model dynamics.» Firstly grammar: ‘respectively’ is incorrect in this usage but more importantly a golden rule in academic writing is to never just describe your results as ‘interesting’ without any further clarification. Just be specific, what is interesting about them? Is it just that each country shows distinctly different dynamics from the each other? More importantly why were these countries chosen? Was it specifically because they showed distinct dynamics as compared to others?
• “Figure 5 (a) shows the farming behaviour from 2022 to 2100. The most lightly coloured cells represent those that have not changed their management since year 2022. Figure 5 (b) and (c) show the ecological impacts the behaviour has on SOC and CY , respectively.” You need to be more specific about the nature of the sub-plots. ‘Each sub-plot contains maps showing dynamics at a grid cell level for each of the countries’ but then what is the spatial resolution because this is not in the figure caption either?
• “In some areas, the importance of local networks and connections for adoption and spreading becomes evident. In these cases, one can observe “seeds" of new management practices that spread to adjacent cells, and sometimes evolve into a new shared management cell cluster, over the simulation period. Here, the principal of local spreading comes into play, which is influenced both by social norm and social learning dynamics: the local descriptive social norm encourages the adoption of locally» My problem with this section is that it the result is self-evident, i.e. we know we should see these dynamics because this is exactly how the processes in the model are encoded and hence what we should expect. But more importantly you have framed this section as being about interesting dynamics and the differences between countries but this is not saying anything in that direction?
• “as well as South Africa (close to Bloemfontein),” and “(close to Corumba),” and “on the Balearic Islands,” None of the maps contain place names or locator maps and you cannot expect readers to know specific locations in a selection of countries without these. Either add these elements to the figures or rely on alternative geographical descriptors, although even saying ‘in the north’ etc. is flawed because the maps lack a north arrow and scale bar.
• “Without neighbours practising different management to learn from, or local social norms to exert pressure, a switch in decision-making can solely arise from a dissatisfaction with the agent’s own ecological performance.» This a logical explanation for the observed results but are you only inferring this or can this actually be validated by the underlying data from the model? If so, I think it would be important to take the explanation one step further i.e. why is it these specific locales that trends in ecological performance are driving this effect i.e. is it a knock/on effect of climate change driven impacts on performance indicators which then prompts this change in behaviour?
• “In the analysis of simulation results, it becomes evident that model behaviour differs significantly across different world regions and their respective conditions.» Significantly is a very loaded word in scientific writing, you have not formally assessed the significance of the differences better to use a synonym such as ‘substantially’
• “in the evaluation of the biophysical performance (de)merits that a certain management practice entails.” I am sorry but this doesn’t make sense grammatically with the use of ‘de(merits)’ be clearer and talks about ‘benefits or drawbacks’ but also you need to re-structure the sentence for it to make sense.
• “While, on a global average, we can observe that CT, as compared to CF, has a positive effect on SOC and CY , the biophysical, and thus also social-ecological dynamics differ considerably between and within countries:” Ok multiple problems here:
o Firstly, ‘on a global average’ doesn’t make sense grammatically but also more importantly you have not shown that you have calculated an average value. Be more specific: While at a global level…’
o Secondly, the comparison is not logical because you are neither stating what the directionality of the relationship is or being clear that the relationship is different for CF? i.e. you need to either say that CT has a greater positive effect than CF or that CT has a positive effect whereas CF has a negative effect. At the moment as a reader I don’t know what the relationship is?
o Then for the last clause of the sentence, it needs to be clear that the biophysical and socio-ecological dynamics are the factors that are driving differences in SOC and CY because at the moment the use of just a comma to join the clauses does not imply this.
o But more importantly for the last clause why are you repeating this? The whole broader section has been framed from the start that there are differences in drivers between countries and thus repeating this again is not adding anything?
• “Nevertheless, especially in Paraguay, very different dynamics can be observed:» Again don’t repeat, you have said at the start of the paragraph that there are differences just say how Paraguay is different.
• “As pointed out in Chapter 2.1, the biophysical model behaviour in Paraguay can be explained by land-use change legacy effects also described in Herzfeld et al. (2021).» This sentence is misleading because nowher ein section 2.1 do you specifically talk about this being the situation in Paraguay which the sentence is implying. But even more crucially I don’t think you are actually presenting another evidence to make this leap? How can you definitely say that this result stems from land-legacy effects and not any of the other variables in the model? You are not showing us any of the input data that confirms this assertion?
• “Some cells in the centre of Paraguay even show missing data points regarding SOC values.» The use of ‘even’ implies that the missing data points are resulting from the land use legacies but why is this logically coherent from a causal perspective? I can think of lots of other reasons why there may be missing data points, you need to demonstrate the logic here.
• “In addition to ecological heterogeneity, social heterogeneity greatly influences model dynamics. The initial share of the two AFTs has been shown to largely impact simulation dynamics and model results. A systematic comparison of different initial AFT shares, for example, shows that the global mean behaviour change differs by up to 60 % between scenarios with only traditionalist, or only pioneer AFTs.” You are mixing tenses (shown and shows). This is a bigger problem through-out the results section, ideally you should be talking about the results of the experiment in the past tense.
• “Figure 5. InSEEDS simulation of year 2100 for selected countries Paraguay, Spain and South Africa. a shows the age of the applied management (CF/CT) and behaviour change since start of the coupled simulation (2022) –the lighter the shade, the more recent the adoption. b shows the annual change rate of the top soil carbon layer (20 cm), and c the change of the CY since 2022. Adoption of a novel practice that isn’t driven by the local social network are marked in pink, illustrations of local spreading processes are marked in purple, and the distinct ecologically heterogeneous conditions are marked in red.»
o Applied management cannot have an ‘age’ needs to read along the lines of ‘duration since adoption of the management’.
o Figure captions must stand-alone hence don’t use an abbreviation in the caption but the full term in the figure: CY vs. crop yield. Also not grammatically correct to say ‘of the crop yield’ because yield is itself a dimension, needs to be either ‘in crop yield’ or ‘of the crop yield value’.
o ‘are marked in pink’need to be more specific because you have pink in one of your colour schemes as well: ‘are highlighted by overlaid pink squares’
o ‘Illustrations of’ word choice these are not illustrations of they are again ‘highlighting’ the phenomenon.
o There are no red marked areas in the figure?
• Figure 5 comments:
o It’s very boring for me to say this because it is the standard critique of most map-based figures but you do need to include a scale bar and north arrow as part of the figure. I don’t always believe this is necessary for figures which are meant to be slightly more abstracted like this, however the fact you are comparing three different countries does make it necessary in my opinion.
o More importantly, I don’t remember being told what is the spatial resolution of the rasters being used in the figure or the outputs of these InSEEDs simulations?
o Why for Paraquay does your map using a bounding box that extends beyond the country borders when you are not doing this for the other countries?
o As mentioned in the comment above it is not helpful to refer to specific in-country locations in the text when the maps do not show readers where these are. Either include points for the locations or don’t make reference to them.
o The coloured squares used to highlight the areas displaying certain tendencies are OK visually but the figure could be improved by including ‘zoomed in’ inset maps of these locations. The main point you are trying to make with this figure is these specific dynamics and hence you wan to draw the readers attention as much as possible, inset maps would help to do this.
o I don-t think the areas highlighted showing adoption of alternative practices in the Parauay or South/Africa are actually good examples of this_ The assertion is that this is meant to be a change in practice irrespective of the neighbouring cells but in both pink squares in these maps there are neighbouring cells with the same practices so how is this the case or am I missing something?
4.2.2 Local/cell scale
• “On the level of one cell, we can observe further dynamics related to different dimensions of the decision-making function, like norms and attitude.” It feels strange to framing the discussion in terms of cells without knowing what spatial extent these represent? Although in reality that is not essentially because you are referring to the dynamics with respect to these as single entities or ‘units’ within the model. I think it would be good to focus at this level of abstraction rather than saying cells which muddles up the spatial dimensions and siting of these.
• “The cells were chosen for several reasons: (1) they exhibit particularly interesting, and distinct mechanisms leading up to the switch of the farmer management practice, (2) they are located at the Balearic Islands (see the marked islands on Figure 5), and their particular properties as island cells limit the influences acting on them, and thus makes them more easily traceable.” Ok you have said how you have picked cells, but as a reader I still don’t understand what cells you are referring to, i.e. are these cells you are going to discuss in more detail, cells that are depicted in another figure? The sentence assumes the reader has a prior knowledge of the cells in question.
• “The runs stem from experiments» The same as the point above exactly what runs are you referring to here? The reader has no prior reference in this section?
• “parametrisation yields» yields implies that it has produced these values, this is not correct, you have set the values as they are.Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4079-RC3
Model code and software
Model of integrated social-ecological resilient land systems (InSEEDS) (v0.2.3). J. Breier et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14265856
copan:LPJmL, an advanced World-Earth modeling framework extending copan:CORE, integrating LPJmL as the Earth system interface for comprehensive social-ecological simulations. (v1.0.0) J. Breier et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14246191
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General Assessment
This manuscript presents InSEEDS, a coupled model integrating LPJmL with agent-based modeling to simulate agricultural transitions. While the coupling represents a technical achievement, the work appears to be more of a proof-of-concept than a study reaching substantial conclusions about agricultural transitions.
Detailed Evaluation Following ESD Criteria
The contribution of this paper represents more a proof of concept than substantial conclusions.
The following paragraph, written by the authors, summarizes well their contribution: “In this paper, we have introduced the InSEEDS model, described its social, ecological components, and their interactions, and tested the model’s parameter sensitivity. We laid out first simulation results that point to distinct centrally important elements and processes in the co-evolutionary model dynamics. We zoom into certain dimensions of the co-evolutionary dynamics that can be observed at different spatial scales of simulation results, from global to cell level.”
The conclusions are undermined by methodological limitations. The Paraguay case study (Section 4.2.1) is particularly concerning—the model predicts widespread adoption of conventional farming that contradicts historical trends, which the authors acknowledge but inadequately address.
Results largely align with interpretations and conclusions. However, some key concerns:
ODD and ODD+D protocols for the agent-based model are attached. Code is made available. Model setup and parameterization are described in detail. To ensure reproducibility, the authors should additionally prepare the following:
Critical issues identified:
Minor issues:
Excessive abbreviations: It is strongly recommended to reduce the number of abbreviations, where possible (e.g., SOM, WEM, SA, HLSO, CA, AB-DGVMs, …).
Sensitivity analysis: Requires major text (Chapter 3.3)/table/figure revisions. It seems that the analysis is solid, but the description is very erroneous and unclear.
Minor Corrections
Recommendation
The coupling framework represents a technical achievement, but the model's current implementation is too simplified and poorly validated for the ambitious claims made. The authors must either:
The current manuscript falls between these positions, claiming transformative insights while acknowledging fundamental limitations that undermine those very claims.
Note to editor: I am not familiar with LPJmL initialization and spin-up processes and cannot assess the respective paragraph in Section 3.2.