Dear authors,

in my role as Executive editor of GMD, I would like to bring to your attention our Editorial version 1.2: https://www.geosci-model-dev.net/12/2215/2019/

This highlights some requirements of papers published in GMD, which is also available on the GMD website in the ‘Manuscript Types’ section: http://www.geoscientific-model-development.net/submission/manuscript_types.html

In particular, please note that for your paper, the following requirement has not been met in the Discussions paper:

• Code must be published on a persistent public archive with a unique identifier for the exact model version described in the paper or uploaded to the supplement, unless this is impossible for reasons beyond the control of authors. All papers must include a section, at the end of the paper, entitled "Code availability". Here, either instructions for obtaining the code, or the reasons why the code is not available should be clearly stated. It is preferred for the code to be uploaded as a supplement or to be made available at a data repository with an associated DOI (digital object identifier) for the exact model version described in the paper. Alternatively, for established models, there may be an existing means of accessing the code through a particular system. In this case, there must exist a means of permanently accessing the precise model version described in the paper. In some cases, authors may prefer to put models on their own website, or to act as a point of contact for obtaining the code. Given the impermanence of websites and email addresses, this is not encouraged, and authors should consider improving the availability with a more permanent arrangement. Making code available through personal websites or via email contact to the authors is not sufficient. After the paper is accepted the model archive should be updated to include a link to the GMD paper.

As GitHub is not a persistent archive, please provide a persistent release for the exact version of the downscaling scripts used for the publication in this paper. As explained in https://www.geoscientific-model-development.net/about/manuscript_types.html the preferred reference to this release is through the use of a DOI which then can be cited in the paper. For projects in GitHub a DOI for a released code version can easily be created using Zenodo, see https://guides.github.com/activities/citable-code/ for details.

Please note, best practice is to publish both, the URL for the updated repositories and the permanently archived version of the code / data used for this publication.

Yours,  Astrid Kerkweg