This article presents a comprehensive model of hydro-thermal processes in vegetated soil and snow cover, emphasizing the vertical variations of physical parameters along the soil profile. The model features a sophisticated snow processes scheme capable of handling extremely thin and thick snow layers, ensuring accurate simulation of water phase transitions in soil and snow. The interaction between the atmosphere and land surface is simulated, incorporating vegetation and snow cover as independent thermodynamic entities. The model's verification in the NWP model Bolam demonstrates its performance across various climatic zones, revealing biases and RMSEs for temperature and humidity, with particular attention to seasonal variations and geographical differences. The model is based on the idea of describing the thermal state of soil environment using entropy, and pays attention to the soil water phase transition, making it novel and potentially applicable in atmospheric and climate research. However, the article still needs some revisions before it is suitable for publication.

1. The colors in Figure 1 seem to be inconsistent with the colors in the legend (color for "Liquid water on the plant leaf surface"). Please check if there is a problem.

2. The meaning of β veg in equation 11 does not seem to be given in the article.

3. In Figure 2, it mentions k=nlev_soil, where nlev_soil refers to the maximum number of soil layers？Can this maximum number of layers vary, or is it a fixed value? Also, is the vertical stratification of soil layers in the model uniform, or does it vary across different spatial locations?

4. Why were the simulation results from 2013 to 2015 over the European region selected for validating the Pochva model, instead of selecting periods from the routine operational weather prediction results of CNR-ISAC, where Pochva has already been applied?

5. In the evaluation of land surface models, offline mode is commonly used. Can the Pochva model perform offline simulations? If so, it is suggested to use offline simulations for evaluation to more effectively avoid the uncertainty in atmospheric models from influencing the evaluation results.

Minor modifications:

1. It is recommended to remove the phrase 'of National Center of Atmospheric Research (USA)' after the Common Land model in lines 26-27, as the later development and application of this model were mostly carried out in China.

2. line 316 then shuld be than?

3. line 385 does the equation in this line need a number?

4. line 559 snow us should be snow was?

Finally, the reviewer would like to express his respect for the author of the article. As we all know, developing a new land surface model all by oneself is extremely difficult and may face various challenges.

General Comment

The paper presents “Pochva”, a model of hydro-thermal processes at the Earth surface to be included in meteorological or climate models. The paper is interesting and can provide a valuable contribution to the community. However, in my opinion, some weaknesses should be solved before the paper can be accepted for publication.

In most cases, it is not clear what are the elements of novelty of this scheme with respect to other land surface models. The Author should better emphasize the similarities and the differences of the new parameterization with respect to existing land surface models, also to highlight why users should choose “Pochva” against other land surface models.

The analysis of the performance of the parameterization presented in the paper does not allow a clear evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the scheme, since Pochva is online coupled with the NWP model Bolam and errors in an NWP model can be caused by different interacting factors. It would be better to evaluate Pochva offline (directly forced by observations). Otherwise, it would be interesting to compare the results of Bolam online coupled with different land surface models. In this way, it would be easier to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Pochva.

Major Comments

• Model description: the formulations adopted to describe the various physical processes should be better justified, pointing out if they have been taken from previous literature, adapted for this new scheme or if they are completely original. As an example, in Section 2.2, it is unclear how and why Equations 3, 4, and 5 were chosen for defining the empirical soil coefficient α_soil. This is valid for most of the equations presented in this paper. The Author should try to emphasize the elements of novelty of Pochva through comparison with the formulations used in other land surface models. In the present version of the manuscript, the comparison with other existing land surface models is completely absent, whereas Pochva should be described in the framework of the literature in this field.
• Model evaluation: as written in the General Comment, in the present version of the manuscript it is difficult to evaluate the performance of Pochva because (i) Bolam model errors can be due to different reasons, so it is not clear if we are analysing errors related to the land surface model or to other components of the NWP model, (ii) a comparison with the results provided by other land surface models is not present. Therefore, it is not clear how to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of Pochva. Indeed, in Section 7 the Author speculates on the possible causes of model errors, but clear conclusions cannot be drawn.
• Quality of the presentation: The quality of the presentation is not always satisfying. A review by a native English speaker would be beneficial.

Minor and technical comments

Line 30: check the reference style

Line 43: “to the inhomogeneity IN soil parameters along…”

Line 67: “is composed OF a set of fractions…”

Lines 86-87: from this sentence it seems that the fraction of wet low-vegetation leaves is pre-assigned, whereas it is variable and calculated by the parameterization.

Equation 2: T₀ should be defined.

Line 108 and 110: asoil should be α_soil

Line 112: “see section 6” should be "see section 7”

Line 137 and line 148: bveg should be β_veg

Line 146: W m^-2 and not Watt m^-2

Line 158: it is not clear how k_root is evaluated.

Line 209: W m^-2 and not Watt m^-2

Line 210:  should be

Line 252: “can either be composed OF soil partially covered…”

Lines 400 and 453: “Let’s” is colloquial.

Equation 68: f_ice^soil should be f_b

Line 458: “temperature before and after…”

Line 500: “and density are conserved.”

Line 516: errors in displaying the symbols.

Lines 517-521: I do not understand the hypothesis that all the liquid water at the beginning of the time step is at level k and at the end of the time step is at level k+1, also considering that the layer thickness is variable in time. This assumption should be better justified.

Line 549: rsnow should be ρ_snow.

Line 559: “The heat conductivity of snow IS defined…”

Line 559: check the correct reference style.

Line 567: Is S_snow the entropy of soil water?

Line 580: soil water entropy or snow entropy?

Lines 593-594: “diagnose the length of the time interval during which snow is exposed to melting”.

Line 610: “at 2 m above SURFACE”

Line 655: “it can thus be noticed that…”

Line 747: “2-m dew-point temperature”

Line 762: “winter and autumn” should be “spring and autumn”.

Lines 782-783: The Author says that the presented model can be useful for modelling conditions over polar or cold climate zones and in the forecast of snow cover. However, model results show the highest errors in winter in continental and mountain areas. In this regard, the Author says that the higher errors can be explained by a poor simulation of the snow cover. Therefore, the conclusions seem inconsistent with the results.

Line 785: “or to OBSERVATIONS of air surface…”

Figure 1: the color of “Liquid water on the plant leaf surface” is not consistent between figure and legend.

Figures 4-7: I would plot the orography in gray shading to better see the station points.

Caption Figure 9: “Average diurnal cycle…"

Caption Figure 10: “Same as figure 9…"

Caption Figure 11: “Average diurnal cycle…"

Caption Figure 10: “Same as figure 11…"