Dear authors,

Thank you for addressing multiple comments raised by reviewers, which improved the quality of the initial manuscript version.

I am glad to inform you that the manuscript will be accepted for publication in GMD after a few additional minor revisions are made. Thus please consider qualitative comments raised by both reviewers in the second round of review - contained in the attached PDF file.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Best regards,

Nina Črnivec, Topic Editor,
Geoscientific Model Development

Dear authors,

Thank you very much for addressing the second round of comments raised by reviewers, which improved the quality of the manuscript.

I support the manuscript for publication after several technical and grammar corrections are applied following GMD guidelines:

https://www.geoscientific-model-development.net/submission.html

- Spaces must be included between number and unit (e.g. 1 %). Please consider this at multiple instances within the text (Lines 34, 85, 89, 227, 253, 356, 370, 384, 385, 393, 394, 395, 405, 406, 407, 413, 448, 449, 452, 454, 456).

- Units must be written exponentially (e.g. g m–3). Please consider this at multiple instances within the text (e.g., Lines 147, 180, ...) as well as on Figures and in Figure captions.

- The abbreviation "Fig." should be used when it appears in running text and should be followed by a number unless it comes at the beginning of a sentence, e.g.: "The results are depicted in Fig. 5. Figure 9 reveals that...". Please consider this at multiple instances within the text (e.g., Lines 365, 376, 378, 382, ...)

- Line 134: "equation (2)" should be "Eq. (2)".

- Please make multiple changes regarding abbreviations:

a) I would advise you to omit definitions of several abbreviations in the Abstract (SDM, LES, NC), since you don't use them later in the Abstract. The abbreviations have to be newly defined in the Main text anyway.

b) The abbreviation "SDM" is defined twice within the Main text (Line 95, Line 104).

c) The abbreviation "CS" is defined twice within the Main text (Line 76, Line 95).

d) The abbreviation "NC" is defined in Line 393; but it should be instead defined earlier (at the first instance in the Main text).

e) The abbreviation "CB" is defined in Line 90; but it should be instead defined earlier (at the first instance in the Main text).

- I can notice both "Greenfield Gap" and "Greenfield gap" appearing at multiple places within the manuscript. Please use consistent terminology.

- Please correct reference citations at multiple places within the text, for example:
a) Lines 98 and 484: "(Tinsley and Zhou 2015)" should be "(Tinsley and Zhou, 2015)";
b) Line 487: "(Zelinka et al. 2017)" should be "(Zelinka et al., 2017)";
...

- A few additional comments regarding optimization of the Figures:

a) As already previously pointed out by the reviewer: the choice of axis ranges in Figs. 3a, 6, 7, 8 is not optimal, since the vast majority of plot area is left blank.

b) Figure 3: "IM setting" should also be mentioned in figure caption. I would further advise you to employ different colors for displaying results of various settings (NC, CB, CS, IM) in order to improve the readability of the figure (while you can retain different line types).

c) Figures 4, 5, 6, 7, 8: Similarly as in Fig. 3 I would advise you to use different (and contrasting ! ) colors for various results displayed on plot. For example, you often use grey and black lines on the same plot, which might be difficult to distinguish. Choosing bright yellow color as you do in Fig. 8 is also not optimal. Thus please improve the quality of figures.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Best regards,

Nina Črnivec, Topic Editor,
Geoscientific Model Development